


Guiltless

by sebviathan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Mental Health Issues, i'm giving sam a lot of psychopathic traits based on my observations of him in canon, sam didn't feel guilty about not looking for dean or kevin and you literally cannot argue otherwise, so if psychopath!sam makes you uncomfortable then you won't like this, that space in between season 7 and season 8
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-08 20:06:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1954566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebviathan/pseuds/sebviathan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone in Sam's life is dead or gone, and in all honesty he's never felt more free in his life. Soon burdened with the lonliness that accompanies it, however, Sam grows desperate and turns to the only thing he can think of (and the only thing he's wanted for a long time): Getting Lucifer out of the Cage again. Just to be together, regardless of the consequences it may bring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I never did get along with everybody else

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is from the song 'This River is Wild' by The Killers.

It's been an hour since Dick Roman exploded and took Dean and Cas with him. Sam followed Crowley's advice and got the hell out of the building, and he's been driving the busted-up impala back to Rufus's cabin since then.

He doesn't know where Meg is. Or where Kevin is, other than that Crowley has him. And most importantly he doesn't know where Dean and Cas are or if they're even  _anywhere_. Part of him figures that what happened is that they must have disappeared or been transported somewhere because there was no trace of them—no blood, no chunks, no pieces of fabric—among the black goo. But then again there wasn't any trace of Dick Roman's clothes either, so maybe that's just how thorough the explosion was.

So the rest of him figures that they must be dead. It's funny, how many times in his life he's had that thought about his brother— _He's dead, he's probably dead_ _—_ and how many times it turned out not to be true. Not to mention how he's never been one-hundred percent sure because part of him knows how it just isn't ever  _over_  for them.

It's funny how that thought always brought him intense fear before and now it brings him a physical sense of relief, a realization no more consequential than the traffic light turning green just now. Sam might even go so far as to say that he's happy it worked out this way.

Did he  _want_  Dean and Cas to die? Of course not, he never would. Not actively. But it's comforting to know that he can't do anything about the situation. Years ago he would have said  _fuck that_  and searched anyway—he would have summoned as many demons and angels as possible to find out where they might have disappeared to, and hell, he would have been completely willing to torture all of them, too. But he's thinking logically now, probably the most he's thought exclusively with his brain in years, and he knows it's impossible. There really isn't  _anything_  he can do.

He and Dean have a mutual promise, anyway. Don't look for each other. If there was no promise, Sam might feel a sense of obligation right now. Technically a sense of fear that if Dean does come back somehow, he'll be heartbroken and angry that Sam didn't care enough to look for him.

Although  _really_ , Sam decides with jump in his heart that makes him unwittingly speed the car up a bit, he  _doesn't_  care.

This isn't a world where he needs to care anymore. All of his family and friends are dead or gone somehow, and that makes him more alone than he's ever been so naturally, there's a layer of sadness building up in him. But that layer peels away like old paint because then he thinks about it again and it's like a breath of fresh air, and for the first time in an hour his mouth opens and the words that reach the wind are "All of them are  _gone_."

Their company is gone, but so is the weight on him. He tries not to think of it that way but the word that comes to mind is  _burden_  and then all he can remember is the brief time Lucifer was in him and they just talked and all that Lucifer told him about his family. He was right; Sam's been running from them his whole life. And then he decides he doesn't mind so much thinking of it in the sense that he's free.

Maybe he's not sad because of the shock. It would make sense—assuming they really are dead, he didn't even really  _see_  Dean and Cas die. He saw a small explosion of black goo and then they were gone like magic, and there was no blood or pain or any preconceived thoughts that dying was even a possibility.

Maybe he's not sad because this time he knows that being sad won't solve a damn thing.

There's no one around to expect him to be sad. There's no one who expects anything from him anymore—and it is  _so_  fucking good to know how utterly alone he is right now.

Sam can't help it. He grins, and it's one of those full grins where his teeth are showing and his pupils are dilating and his skin is folding into dimples and wrinkles around his eyes, and for a moment his neck snaps to the right because for a split second he's afraid someone will see him and say " _Why the fuck are you so happy?_ "

No one says it but a guy in the lane next to him sees him smiling so wide and smiles back at him, and Sam hears Dean's voice in his head say it anyway.

"Because I'm allowed to be, now," Sam says out loud, and it occurs to him that there isn't any guilt tossing in his stomach even at the ghost of Dean's voice. Logically speaking, why should he be guilty? There wasn't anything he could do about it, after all.

On his way to Montana, he drives past a mechanic and it suddenly occurs to him that he has no idea how to fix a car. So without a second thought he makes a U-turn and pulls into the place, and he asks the guy how soon he can fix up the impala to top shape.

Immediately after, he remembers that he doesn't really have a reason to hurry anymore, and the fact that he has all the time in the world feels like a revelation. He can't remember the last time he felt like that, honestly. It sounds horrible, but it's like when Dean and Cas disappeared they took all of Sam's stress with them.

"It doesn't look too bad," the guy tells him when he's done marveling at the make and model that it is, "so if you come back in a couple days I should have her good as new."

Sam pays him upfront and gets one of the rental cars for the time being, and then when he's back on the road he decides that if there's anything in this world he's attached to anymore, it's the impala. He's been with that car too long to not be sentimental, but more than anything it's just a quick thought that he definitely wants to keep the car. Feeling like he's just been freed from shackles after his own brother's death is one thing, but getting rid of the car would be downright blasphemous.

Unlike Dean, though, he can stand using a different one for a bit.

* * *

 

Staying the night in a motel without Dean doesn't feel nearly as odd as everything else. He's done it plenty of times before. In fact—it's refreshing and he's never  _not_  preferred having a room to himself, even in the days when they were particularly codependent and when Sam was willing to die for him.

It isn't anything he'd ever be willing to tell anyone, but spending every waking (and sleeping) moment with your brother really fucks with you. One: it causes a sick kind of codependency, which has proven to be a bitch to live with and even more of a bitch to get out of. Sam considers himself lucky to not feel any lasting effects after all this time. And two: when you're even the slightest bit attracted to men and you also have pent-up sexual frustration due to the latest apocalypse keeping you busy, and your brother is the only man around—as said before, it fucks you up. It  _really_  fucks you up. You have to constantly distract yourself so you can avoid even the slightest idea of thinking that way and half the time you drink, it's meant to be a distraction. You have to go at least a week in between every time you jerk off to make sure that you come before your mind has the chance to stray in that direction. And every time you're edging and you just can't help but think about it, you take an hour-long cold shower and cry.

Sam hopes so much that  _that_  doesn't have any lasting effects. If nothing else, it's one reason that he can honestly and guiltlessly say that he's  _happy_  Dean is gone, now. This is, objectively and undoubtedly, the best thing for his health.

In the space of time between checking out of the motel and arriving at Rufus's cabin in the newly-fixed impala, Sam has already made the impulse decision to get rid of half of his phones (as in: throw them into a lake), but he thinks he ought to wait about a month before throwing away Dean's clothes. He doesn't necessarily need the extra trunk room just yet and he can't imagine when he really  _will_  (though part of him feels like it will finalize Dean's sudden but appreciated exit from his life), but if somehow Dean comes back within the month and realizes that Sam has already accepted it, then his ass is done for. Given their track record of cheating death, it's a very real concern.

The stop at Rufus's cabin lasts a week. It's a means for him to rest—to  _really_  rest, and make up for all the sleepless nights he's gotten for the past several years.

The first bout of sleep he gets lasts seventeen hours and by the time he wakes up he's absolutely starving. And all the time he's spent watching his health is thrown to the side for now as he drives to the closest diner and orders whatever sounds the most filling.

The waiter is stockily built with a bit of scruff and he can't help but flirt because the guy reminds him of a certain someone trapped in a certain fiery pit. Once he's had his full, though, he leaves feeling bad and it's the first time he's felt real guilt since Dean disappeared. ( _Died_ , he keeps reminding himself. He definitely died.)

But Lucifer is still stuck in the fucking Cage where he never deserved to be in the first place and it  _is_  Sam's fault whether jumping in there was the right choice or not. Whether Lucifer agreed with that or not.

It's been what, two years since he got out? So—six-thousand years Cage-time. Nearly seven-thousand years, actually, that Lucifer has undoubtedly been sitting down there and screaming (Sam almost swears he can hear it sometimes) and climbing the walls every day until the effort defeats him. Part of him feels like those three-thousand years he spent with Lucifer were more than he deserved. Part of him craves the days of the apocalypse again and wants to choose the route Lucifer originally wanted. All of him simply aches to be with him again.

It's too early for this. Of course this sort of thing is always in the back of his mind, but now that he's alone, there's nothing to distract him. There's no one around to potentially judge him (or worse) for thinking about  _the Devil_  that way, so now he can't stop. It's twenty 'till noon and he's driving on a lonely road in Whitefish, Montana and the only thing on his mind is  _wouldn't it be great if Lucifer and I could just live here, away from everything?_

Sam spends hours watching crap TV when he gets back just because he can, and then he somehow manages to sleep again but just for a couple hours. What wakes him up is a tightness in his pants that he doesn't hesitate to take care of—and this is where he truly utilizes his freedom because he is perfectly safe in shrugging off his jeans altogether and letting Lucifer's name roll off his tongue the moment he grasps himself. He tightens his own hand in his hair and pretends it's  _him_ , and just like every other time, he swears he can feel the extra weight on him once he comes.

Afterward he has a warm shower and doesn't come out for a while.

The rest of the week follows on that sort of cycle until Sam's decided that he's slept enough to to be able to last a solid 48 hours and probably be fine, and he packs up all of Bobby's books into the impala. He doesn't exactly plan on hunting anymore if he can help it, but if he ends up needing the lore, he'd rather not need to travel for it. After that it takes at least twelve hours for it to occur to Sam that not only does he have no real idea where he's going, but that he's continuing the sort of life he was looking forward to getting away from and can't find it in him to care.

For a split second the thought scares him—maybe it wasn't travelling and hunting that gave him so much grief; maybe it was always just  _Dean_. Or doing everything the way Dean wanted, at least. Because Sam can't think of anything else to do but just keep driving like he's been doing his whole life, and maybe it'll be great now that he's alone.

Maybe he can go visit all the places he never had a chance to before. Except those places don't exist because Dean already took him everywhere on all their time in between cases before things got this serious.

And it's ironically on a busy highway that Sam feels the first real pangs of loneliness and the idea that having everything to himself isn't the greatest thing after all. Despite all his dreams and fantasies of this life, there is suddenly no future in sight and he feels as though there's absolutely no point in living like this and he just can't think of a  _goal_  anymore, and he's grasping at the edges of  _settle down_  and  _get a job_  and  _marry someone_  and  _live normal_  but he can't fucking find a  _point_  to all of it—

The empty road that eventually opens up in front of him works to calm him down, and now he can only wonder if his short breakdown was him finally feeling grief over Dean and Cas, or if he's feeling withdrawals from his old codependency issues, or something else entirely. Perhaps he just never thought that being alone would be like this.

An hour later in another state Sam starts freaking out again, and before it starts becoming too unsafe to drive he pulls into a gas station. He needs to fill up the tank anyway, and it couldn't hurt to get a bottle of wine and some food, too.

He doesn't realize quite how spooked he looks until, only a few seconds after stumbling in, the cashier leans forward and gives a genuinely concerned "You okay, man?" At which his first thought is to twist around to find the closest reflective surface and look at himself—he looks shaken, like he either just threw up or he's about to, and simultaneously like he hasn't slept in days even though it's quite the contrary. In his experience, though, mental breakdowns do fuck with you physically, so he's not all that surprised. He thinks that what he needs is to dunk his head in a bucket of ice-water.

"Yeah, m'fine," Sam says dismissively, dragging a hand down his face and trying to look as normal as possible as he walks down the aisle to get the food and alcohol that he wants, and then follows on his thoughts and grabs a bag of ice from the freezer.

It's apparently not all that convincing when he sets his things almost violently on the counter because the clerk spends a few good seconds frowning at him before saying "You sure you're alright?"

The words seem to go past him, like they're much too distant despite how clearly he can hear them. Sam feels his potential response curling back on his tongue, though, and all of his fears and anxiety that's been bubbling up in him like a storm just seems to  _get_  to him—and then it consciously occurs to him that it's dark and that there's no one else in the gas station.

Sam leans forward as though he's about to tell a secret and the clerk takes the bait the way a fish unthinkingly nibbles at the bread in the water, and it's with a lazy motion—elegantly contained rage, really—that his hands come up to break the clerk's neck. The way a duck unthinkingly darts out to eat a fish within its reach.

_Why_ _—_

He can't think of a good reason why he just did that. Honestly, it probably wasn't even real. But the tension in his muscles bleed out and he recognizes it as the first time in years (the first time since he began hunting) that he's felt a very real urge to kill an innocent person. His heart rises out of the slow drag of a pace it was pumping before, though the casualty with which he slides the dead clerk onto the floor and leaves two twenties on the counter is sickening.

"It's grief," he suggests to himself, heaving the ice and everything else into the passenger seat. He doesn't even bother filling up his tank because it's better if he waits until he's in the next city over now that he's possibly just done a murder.

And there's no reason to deny that his anger's been building up just like it always has—it might just be that, too. And of course the stress from his brief meltdown... Sam suspects that it's a number of things. The hallucination theory is still solid. He tries not to think about it much, which is particularly easy once he's miles away and drowning himself in wine.

The next day he turns on the news on the motel television and sees that police are apparently baffled at " _one of the most polite murders they've ever seen_." Cashier killed, nothing stolen, nothing broken, money on the counter. No motive detected, but security cameras show a man who appears to be insane and dangerous.

Sam can't help but laugh, even as he thinks of how he'll need to high-tail it out of the state and change the impala's plates. Perhaps he is insane, but at least he can cross  _hallucination_  off the list.

* * *

 

It's been two weeks since Dick Roman exploded, and Sam hasn't bothered to check any of the news regarding any of the political figures who have mysteriously disappeared. He can only assume that Crowley and likely other hunters will take care of any loose ends, and he has officially decided (if he didn't before) that nothing is his responsibility anymore.

Though when his mind comes around to  _responsibility_  Lucifer is the subject of most thoughts that float to the surface.

It's two weeks, one day, and three minutes until a chord within Sam strikes itself and he begins treating ideas of springing Lucifer from his cage as one-hundred percent serious. Not to say that they weren't serious before, but now he feels his legs working their way toward the intimidating pile of books in the impala instead of sinking into the motel bed.

He feels  _empty_  is what it has, for some reason, taken him so long to decide, and not because Dean's gone. Rather because  _Lucifer_  is gone and now nothing and no one is here to offer distraction or give him a means to pretend to fill the hole that's always been there.

The universe has always seemed to be working against Sam—when your literal other half is essentially stuck in another dimension, that's the only explanation you can really come up with—but now he figures that maybe it just wanted him to be patient and wait. It's unfair bullshit and if he ever meets God in person the first thing he'll do is punch him in the face, but now is his chance. He has a chance to put things the way they're supposed to be (and if everyone else had to be gone before this was possible, then clearly this is just the way things are  _supposed to be_ ).

(Just him and Lucifer.)

There are enough books to cover the motel bed completely, and a few of them are even thicker than Sam's bicep. But Bobby's extensive collection is the most reliable and useful method of research he has, giving him no room to complain. So he grabs a couple of the larger leather-bound nightmares and sets them down on the table to start cracking.

... _And_  as he should have expected, a great deal of any information that seems like it might be in the ballpark he's aiming for is in Latin or Greek or Sanskrit or some other ancient language he has no hope of translating on his own. Professor Morrison comes to mind, but then of course he's not exactly useful until Sam has specific pages for him to look at. So he has to power through  _scribbles_.

Over a span of twenty straight hours of skimming and taking a picture of everything that looks promising, his brain might have fried but at least he has hope for the inkling of a chance that  _something_  in all of those scribbles will turn out to mean something.

When he passes out on the floor, Sam's dreams are muddied with sharp lines of text in languages that don't even look real, flying past his eyes as though each character is being burnt into his eyelids in a type-writer fashion. By the time he wakes up he just figures it must be a side-effect of reading for so long, but script is still flashing through his mind enough to make him physically dizzy.

Two migraine pills, a full pitcher of coffee, and a few emails later, Sam is greeted with the chance to accept a skype call with Professor Morrison. He answers the call without hesitation.

"Professor."

"Agent—Smith, was it? You know, I never got any feedback from you and your partner about my housekeeper's green card—"

"Smith, yes," Sam cuts him off. "You got the emails I sent you?"

Morrison adjusts his glasses and frowns in the way that makes Sam's shoulders tense up. "Yes... um—you sent me...  _twenty_  photocopied pages?" Then he gives that concerned look like he expects it to be a mistake. Jesus Christ, he's like a teenager constantly trying to evade homework.

"Not all of them are full pages," Sam assures wryly. Morrison doesn't seem to appreciate that, which is exactly what he was going for. "And that's only half of what I need translated. I'm sending the other twenty to a different contact, so I think you should be grateful that you aren't my only hope for this case." That part's a lie, but it should help convince him. (He did originally have twice this amount, but he's narrowing it down to the oldest-looking texts for now.) "Listen, it's very important that we get these translated as accurately as possible, and you're the best that Academia has to offer."

Boosting an ego generally helps quicken the process, and Morrison does look flattered for a moment—but then he's squinting down at the picture's he's printed out again, and then back up at Sam.

"Where did you even get these?" he presses. "And how—"

"Professor, please." With the sort of stare Sam can give, he's irresistible after a point.

"...I'll see what I can do and get back to you as soon as possible," he promises resignedly. "And, Agent—my housekeeper's green card?"

"Right on it, Professor." Sam smiles politely and promptly ends the skype call.

For now it's all he can do to stay on the road and anticipate the future, thoughts of which don't lead him into breakdowns anymore. Surprisingly enough, however, Sam gets another Skype call at the end of the week.

"I'm assuming you found something important if you're calling back this early," Sam starts.

"Actually, it's more-so what I  _didn't_  find." Morrison frowns, and Sam follows, the beginnings of rage bubbling up. He presses it down. "Half of those texts are in languages I've never even  _seen_ —my best guess is some obscure variation of Akkadian... Where on  _Earth_ did you find these? I'm sure most historians of my standard would die for—"

"What about the languages you did recognize, Professor?" Sam  _does_  desperately wonder where the fuck Bobby got books written in deader-than-dead languages, but if it can't be done then  _it can't be done_  so they need to move on. "Did you translate them?"

"What I could of them," Morrison says with an exasperated sort of shrug and glance to the papers. "These are very, very old, and the dialects are damn near extinct, but—"

"Professor."

"Right, right... Well, whatever murderer you have on your hands this time seems to be obsessed with Satan, and they're  _really_  not messing around. All of the translatable texts were in regards to different names for him in different cultures, even the oldest possible interpretations in Cuneiform. Interesting, really, that anyone would have enthusiasm that runs that deep."

Sam's patience runs too deep for his own good, he decides. Though it almost worries him how angry he can't help getting for something as petty as the way the other man tries to laugh it off.

"Oh, of course," Morrison says, subsequently taking far too long to attach the files to an email and unknowingly making Sam's insides boil. It's more of a low simmer, really. And when they've finally sent—"You know, what I found interesting what that there was one thing that continued to be brought up in most of the texts, and it was regarding—"

"Lucifer's crypts," Sam mutters, eyes glued to the newly opened Word document.

"Yes, it's quite rare that so many interpretations would agree on something so specific—"

"Shut up."

"...Excuse me?"

"I mean—sorry, I need to go. If you manage to translate anything else, email me." Rather rude, he supposes, but he's glad to see the professor's face disappear.

 _Lucifer's crypts._  He doesn't know how it never occurred to him before—the time he spent with Lucifer clued him in to a short list of buried intentions. One of them he remembers is that Lucifer had spent some time visiting his crypts for certain artifacts and ancient spells from the Old Days.

Sam is hit with such a shock and relief that he can't stand to sit, and now he's pacing and glancing around quickly to match how fast his thoughts are syncing up—

If there's anywhere he can expect to find a spell that can opens the Cage and lets Lucifer out, it's one of those crypts. And somehow, inexplicably, he knows exactly whose help he needs to find them.


	2. Living at a pace that kills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is from the song 'Runnin' With the Devil' by Van Halen.
> 
> Also: I basically spilled a SHITLOAD of mythology and lore into this, some of which is essentially just headcanon. Hope none of it seems too ridiculous.

It has to be her.

The more Sam thinks about it, the more it makes sense... and the more it seems like his only option. He knows Meg was one of the most loyal to Lucifer―and she's still got to be a huge Lucifer-loyalist. Why wouldn't she be? Even if he can't bring the apocalypse anymore, there's simply no way she would pass up a chance to let him walk the earth again.

And the only other Lucifer-loyalists he knows of are dead. For good, that is. There's no proof of what happens to a demon after they're killed with the colt or Ruby's knife, but he has no chance of getting them back even if he wanted to.

Meg wasn't just blindly following, either... she knows things. She's much, much older than one would assume. She's nearly as powerful as the deceased Scapegoat of Hell himself, even. And from the time that she spent possessing Sam, he remembers brief flashes of her scattered thoughts. So many disasters and tragedies throughout history that she's responsible of, and the cruelest of the cruel who were normal before being possessed by her. Oliver Cromwell and Erzsebet Bathory come to mind, or at least he's pretty sure. It's all sort of clouded by black smoke, but the point is that she's old as  _balls_.

She's probably the only one left who knows where Lucifer's crypts are.

Briefly, Sam feels bad for not knowing it on his own. Like, Jesus Christ―Lucifer was  _inside_  Sam once. Even afterward, at certain points while they were in the Cage, everything Lucifer knew, Sam had access to during that time. And despite being right within reach of the information for over three  _thousand_  years―

Alright, he needs to stop thinking about it before he gets too frustrated over things that can't be helped anymore. It's really not a good idea―possibly the worst at this point―for him to get angry. He won't allow himself to get to the point of emotional distress where he feels the need to do something that will have to result in another change of the impala's license plate.

Meg. His goal is strictly  _Meg_.

Determination is a driving force, as well as quite a possessive one. The endgame to all of this seems to push Sam forward, both physically and mentally, as he stops his pacing so sharply that he's dizzy for a moment and then strides over to the pile of books. By the time his callused hands roam over the one that he remembers to essentially be a Demonology Encyclopedia, he barely remembers any of the time in between thinking of Meg and finding the book. He doesn't even remember exactly how he recognized the book by simply the pattern of the cover.

It's as though his thoughts are now much too organized, and for the time being nothing is buried or floating around in the recesses. Sam supposes he should at least be mildly frightened by that, but he's too focused to care.

A common demon summoning ritual obviously wouldn't do him any good, and neither will the sort of thing he used way back in the day to summon Ruby. As smart as she was and regardless of her relationship with Lilith and devotion to Lucifer's return, she wasn't quite that powerful. She was common by definition if not practice―just a few hundred years old (in human years) and by no means well known. In spite of all she did to ensure the apocalypse, even, Lucifer probably hadn't ever heard of her.

Whereas Meg's been around for at least two millennia. Sam could feel it when she was inside him; alongside how disgusting it was to have something so mutilated piloting his meatsuit (think the discomfort that would come along with swimming around in chum), he remembers the power. The Old Age, I've-been-here-longer-than-Jesus power. She is anything but common. She's in the fucking  _books_ , is how popular she's made herself over the centuries.

Going by a different name, of course. She's only been calling herself Meg for about seven years now. Sam can only assume she never goes by her true demonic name, and hasn't done so for a very long time―probably to avoid being recognized, and/or summoned. Playing weak has likely done her a lot of good. Always been a rogue demon, that one.

But what she probably never expected was that Sam would  _remember_. She probably thought, during that week of riding his body, that he was fully trapped. For all her hope of Sam being the one, she apparently didn't expect much of him. And of course she dangerously underestimated him, enough to where she apparently didn't even feel Sam's mind poking out of its cramped space and eavesdropping on private thoughts and memories.

Her past is right there at the front of his skull but her  _name_  is somehow frustratingly evading him, and it's right at the tip of his tongue but won't stop slipping away. It was such a vague thought in Meg's mind when he originally found it that he barely realized it at the time. Sam  _knows_  that he knows it, though, and he begins feverishly flipping through pages on the hope that he'll recognize it when he sees it―

Which is exactly what he does. And he doesn't even have to go far because it's all in alphabetical order.

" _Adatiel_!" he shouts in his very sudden excitement, slamming his fist on the book and jumping a bit as well. It's much louder than he intends, but now he's quite a large step forward and this whole thing is headed toward  _Lucifer_ , and―Sam just barely finds it in him to calm down. His blood is rushing like fire in his veins and in such a good way, and he wonders if Lucifer feels the same.

He wonders if somehow he can feel the re-opening of the Cage coming nearer, or perhaps the distance between them getting shorter. Or maybe if Lucifer felt the same rush just now but has no idea why, or if he just grew more hopeful. Sam likes to believe that the bond between them is strong enough to do that.

Finding the summoning ritual specific to Meg really feels like a triumph, not only in this particular plan but also because he highly doubts anyone has even managed to do it in quite a long time. He can only imagine how pissed she'll be, and his lips stretch into a smirk at the thought.

Sam lays out the following steps in his head:  _Gather up the books. Check out of the motel. Buy candles and ingredients. Head directly to Rufus's cabin. Summon the bitch._

It's simple. It's so simple that Sam nearly worries that there must be a catch. However, he rightfully assumes luck is on his side, now. It's just  _so_  much easier to feel like he's headed towards something good without Dean around, really.

But regardless of everything he keeps repeating the steps in his head as though he's afraid of forgetting, and he doesn't stop until he hits the highway and thinks to turn on some music.

Even the actual ingredients are easy―there's nothing that Sam can't find in a typical Wiccan apothecary. You'd think you'd have to go a little more darkside for a demon this old, but then he supposes most of the power is in the symbol and the incantation.

And the blood, of course.

Sam gives the slice on his arm a quick glance and hesitates to begin the incantation. He faces a very brief thought of  _Christ, there's something wrong with me_  before giving into the urge to lick across his own small wound to clean it, and swallow all the excess blood. Technically it's a natural instinct shared by humans and animals to lick their wounds, but it's always seemed so strange to do. After wiping his sleeve across his mouth, he doesn't even need to wonder why he never did it before.

" _Inde ignis mandat, ut peccet,_ " he begins, holding a newly lit match over the bowl and attempting to keep the charge of excitement out of his voice, " _et stringatur pedum sanguis, qui est diabolus, et vadit ad dominum meum mihi terra coram me._ "

He drops the match as the last syllable ends, and the ensuing flames dance in the corner of Sam's vision. His eyes are locked on the sigil, waiting, and his heart is pumping so deep and strong he can hear it.

A few seconds pass and nothing happens. A minute goes by and Sam convinces himself that he's only been waiting a moment but it simply  _feels_  much longer.

Five minutes have inarguably gone by and the six candles sitting at the edges of the sigil have burnt yellow spots into Sam's eyes. No one is there.

"Meg?" he calls out, getting his hopes too high for an answer. He does it again, twice.

"Shit," Sam mutters to himself. "Shit." And then louder, and louder―" _Shit_ , SHIT―"

_Maybe I did something wrong?_

Part of him says  _no, there's no way. I spent so long making sure to get this perfect._

But most of him is desperate, and Meg isn't here so he  _must_  have done something wrong. Sam checks the sigil and double-checks the incantation, and he loses track of how many times he checks the ingredients.

"I DID EVERYTHING RIGHT, WHAT THE  _FUCK_?"

Now he's yelling to himself and it's echoing back at him, letting him hear how bad his anger is getting to him and it only makes it worse now that all of this was for nothing. For a while all he does is shout at the empty space above the sigil until he's hunched over and his neck is taut, and then he just  _needs_  violence, he needs it so bad, and he doesn't give a shit what's in the jar when he grabs it unthinkingly from a shelf and hurls it against the opposite wall.

He doesn't give a shit about how much his knuckles bleed, either, when he punches the wall several times. For the longest time, all he can think is  _what the fuck am I supposed to do now_  while he screams himself hoarse and makes a mess of the basement in his fit of rage. It doesn't even feel like it's the same day anymore when he calms down enough to start thinking rationally and subsequently realizes―

"God. Fucking. Dammit."

Sam's rage was pointless. He doesn't know why he didn't think of it at first, but he's dealt with this before. With fucking  _Crowley_. A mere Devil's Trap kept the King of Hell from coming when called, so there's no question it can happen to lesser demons.

But if that's the case, then what's delaying Meg? She hasn't come after this long, so there's no telling what kind of trouble she's in now. It could be hours before she shows up. Or it could be weeks.

There's nothing to do now but sit and watch the flames die, and try to contain the remaining rage in his gut. He hopes that at least he can forget his surroundings after staring at the wall for long enough.

* * *

 

"Got impatient, did we?"

Sam very nearly drops his beer. It occurs to him for a split second that it's been a while since he last had someone appear out of nowhere and startle him.

"Where―" he starts, launching himself out of his chair and twisting around, but as soon as he sees Meg his deeply furrowed brow goes soft in confusion. She looks... like  _shit_. Wherever she's been all this time, it looks like someone beat her pretty bad. And in his experience, the only thing that can beat a demon like her that bad is either an angel (which, he's pretty sure, are off the chessboard now) or another demon.

Initially, he planned to give her the plan outright. But now he's immensely curious and Meg is looking around at the wreckage from earlier, and he suddenly has absolutely no idea how to start this.

"That's one powerful spell you used to summon me," is the next thing she says, her usual drawl a bit cracked now. Probably from blood in her throat. "Where'd you get it?"

She eyes the sigil with a knowing, almost  _fearful_  look, and then glances over to the tome on the table. Then Sam decides that no, she's  _definitely_  afraid right now. She's afraid because now that Sam knows exactly who she is, there are countless things he can pull against her. And even though he doesn't plan to do anything other than the plan he already has, it gives him an odd sense of satisfaction.

Forgetting his curiosity over her physical condition, Sam approaches her and smiles in a way that would likely give Dean enough chills to want to lock him in the panic room again.

"From you,  _Adatiel_." Hearing her real name stirs something inside her, and Sam can't be sure whether it's uneasiness or anger. "Unless you want  _Ada_  for short? Or, you know,  _She Who Walks the Earth_."

Meg stares at him for a few seconds with forced indifference before saying "Leave it to Sam Winchester to remember something he grabbed from the recesses of the mind of a demon who possessed him... what, five whole years ago?" She folds her arms and relaxes her expression, looking him up and down for a moment. "I'm actually impressed. And honestly, I don't know whether I'd like to throw you across the room or kiss you. But due to my, ah―condition, the first thing is out, so―"

"Wait―" Sam doesn't really think she means to do it, but he needs to understand the situation first. " _Why_  would you want to kiss me, though?"

Then Meg gives him the same look she used to give Dean fairly often. "Aren't you the smart one, Sam?―Look at me, I've just come from getting the non-living shit out of me by Crowley. Your summoning spell was just powerful enough to get me out of there the moment he unlocked my cuffs―so, ah... what can a little demon like me do for you?" she asks cheekily. "I admit I owe you one, and you didn't summon me here for nothing. Unless you were just lonely without your big bro around and wanted my company?"

She grins to match the one he had a minute ago, but Sam has no visible reaction to her attempt at a sly dig. He feels an odd urge to explain to her that he's better than ever now that Dean's gone and assure that he's not pathetically codependent like Dean was―but then he figures that all of that will be clear once he explains what's going on.

"I want your help," he tells her seriously. "I know you're the only one left who knows where Lucifer's crypts are, and I need you to take me to them."

Rather than appearing intrigued or confused as expected, Meg simply looks  _done_. "You too? Jesus, I should have figured you'd want the same thing... because hey, what else does anyone need me for these days?"

" _Wait_." Now Sam is  _really_  confused. "Crowley wants to find the Crypts too? What for?"

"The Angel Tablet... And judging by your surprise, I'd say that's  _not_  what you're after." She gives him a questioning look, and now she does seem intrigued.

"There's an Angel Tablet? I―" He pauses for a moment, and then shakes the irrelevant thoughts out of his head. It sounds like it's going to be some huge deal that will likely affect him drastically in the future, but he can't bring himself to care. Just as he's been telling himself, it's someone else's problem now. "Nevermind. That's not what I summoned you for. I want to open Lucifer's cage again, and I know that if it  _is_  possible, the instructions are going to be in one of the Crypts."

The wide-eyed stare she holds for about ten seconds isn't unexpected, but Sam still wishes he didn't have to go through the inevitable explanation.

"You're fucking with me, right."

 _Sigh._  "No. I'm not. Do I look like I'm fucking with you?" Sam's expression and stance is nothing but exhaustion. So objectively speaking, he shouldn't.

"But―"

"Just listen, alright? I'm not going to go into all the angel-vessel details with you. But the raw fact here is that I need him. The bond between Lucifer and I―it's not something I can explain in five minutes... I was connected to him since before birth and no one realized what that implied. I dreamt about him as a kid and never told anyone. The only time in my life I ever  _didn't_  feel empty was when I was near him. I spent over three thousand years in the Cage with him, and I missed him when I got pulled out. The hallucinations? It was grief, it was fucking  _grief_ and―how did no one else realize it? I know you don't even misunderstand him like other people do―he's like a father to you. You know he's the Lightbringer and not anything less. And you're right, I'm lonely as fuck, but it's not because of Dean."

Silence creeps on them in an oddly peaceful way. Sam just breathes, waiting. And Meg looks at him like she's pleasantly surprised and, possibly, just very happy for once. Of course, Sam can't  _genuinely_  like her even now, but perhaps in another life, where the whole demon thing wasn't a factor, he and Meg could have been good friends.

"I'll do it, definitely," she finally says. "If there's a chance of Lucifer being topside again... of course. But... Sam. You realize that if there  _is_  a way to get him back, it won't be like with the Seals. We're messing with something potentially nastier than ever. You know that, right? You promise not to back out?"

"Is it even a question?" Sam almost laughs, though he doesn't find that quite as odd as how sincere Meg sounds. "And you know that when he comes back, it won't be anything like the apocalypse. I'm not resurrecting him so he can regroup his demon army. I'm doing it t―"

"Just to be with him. Yeah, I get it, you want your boyfriend back. I already said I'm in." Right then she starts walking past him and toward the stairs, to which Sam twists around and starts following.

"So―are we going to the Crypts right now―?"

"Have you seen me, Sam." That's what her mouth says. Her eyes say,  _For someone who would have gotten into Stanford, you really are an idiot._  "You honestly think I'm at full power?  _Crowley_  did this shit to me, Sam. It's not just bodily wounds. It's more like he stuck a red-hot poker at whatever I got that's the equivalent to a soul. Which, coincidentally, is where my power comes from. So if I'm going to teleport the both of us around the world, I'm gonna need some time to recuperate."

On that condescending note, she flashes him a mock-polite smile and continues walking up the stairs. Mildly annoyed now, Sam follows her up but doesn't say anything until they're at ground level.

"How long?"

"Three days, minimum. Need time to regenerate at least half of my skin cells back." Her voice is strained as she charges toward the front door. Turning around enough to see Sam just standing there, she glares again. "We need to get out of here right  _now_ , Sam. Crowley was torturing me for information, remember? That dick'll be looking for me and I'm sure ' _with Sam Winchester_ ' is high on his list of places I could be. Sticking around when he already knows that there's a good chance of you being here is the  _worst_  idea."

Well, fuck.

In a record time of eight seconds, Sam rushes down to the basement to grab the book and his jacket, then rushes back, and he doesn't bother with anything else before hauling his and Meg's ass into the impala and driving off. There's hardly any reassurance that Crowley isn't right on their tail already, and Sam's heart is racing so much faster than he's letting it show. And both of them are constantly checking in the rear-view mirror to make sure the King of Hell hasn't popped in for a visit.

Ah, just when he thought he was done meddling in Crowley's affairs.

* * *

 

Two states over, the front desk clerk of some no-tell motel asks if Sam's "girlfriend" needs to go to the hospital. They both insist that she's fine, and neither of them bother correcting the guy.

It's just for the night, just so Sam doesn't pass out behind the wheel and because they really can't just keep driving non-stop. They don't even necessarily need to, since they should be off the grid for now. And with Meg's instruction, Sam wards the tiny room with unfamiliar blood sigils which should keep Crowley from tracking them.

This sort of thing―running from an inevitable Big Bad, that is―has been just about the past seven years of Sam's life, so he can't bring himself to be afraid anymore. Cautious and prepared, of course. But he can sleep easy, and it's probably his own confidence that keeps Meg from freaking out.

Over the next couple days it becomes clearer and clearer that they're not in any immediate danger. It also becomes more and more possible to Sam that luck finally is coming his way. Funny that it should happen once he's all alone.

Well, not  _all_  alone. There's Meg. It's a new development and not one he necessarily expected, but they are getting along. If it was his only option for companionship and just being near her didn't put him in danger, he supposes that wouldn't be too bad. He definitely does feel less lonely for the time being, and he pretty quickly has the revelation that Meg is essentially a female demon version of Dean, what with her sarcasm and pop culture references.

It's a new Meg, Sam figures. She doesn't act like she did in that other vessel―or before the apocalypse, really. He kind of likes Meg 2.0. The Meg with a Good Cause.

She's also someone whom he can actually talk to regarding Lucifer and how much he misses him. Now that he thinks about it, there probably isn't a single other person alive he can tell about this. He never really means to spill his guts out, though; it just sort of happens.

"So, what  _really_  happened in the Cage?" she asks out of nowhere, turning down the Death Cab song he's been internally singing along to. For a moment Sam just looks at her. "I mean, obviously Lucifer didn't torture you. But you came out pretty fucked up, so. What happened?"

There's barely a pause for breath in between Meg's question and Sam saying, "Michael happened."

"Oh." It's silent now, but Sam manages to turn the radio back up for only a second before Meg turns it back down again. "What about between you and Lucifer?"

"He protected me as much as he could―happy? Or would you prefer the 'We spent three thousand years cuddling and doing the closest thing there is to sex without corporeal forms' answer?"

Meg raises an eyebrow and smirks out the window. "So you've had sex."

Sam turns the radio back up.

Later on, Sam is the one to turn it down so he can look over to Meg while they're stopped at a red light and say, "Since you consider Lucifer your father, doesn't that make me your father-in-law?"

"I thought about that," she admits. "But nothing can erase the fact that you're in your twenties and I'm thousands of years old."

"Hi 'thousands of years old,' I'm Dad." He can't believe he managed to say that with a straight face, but now that it's done he is  _ridiculously_  proud of himself. And Sam's never been good with kids but he's sure Meg's expression would match that of a disgruntled daughter.

"Shut the fuck up, Sam." She doesn't try to hide that she's laughing, though.

"That's it, young lady, you're grounded."

* * *

 

Once Meg has the juice to take Sam across the globe, they don't hesitate to park the impala in an inconspicuous clearing and head directly to the nearest Crypt. Crowley wasn't able to get any information regarding the Crypts' locations during that month he spent torturing Meg, so he's likely to be nowhere near them.

"Hold my hand," she tells him―and when he hesitates just barely, she adds, "No hetero."

"Alright, so. Where's the first one?"

He grabs Meg's hand and with a rush of air not too different from what teleporting with Cas felt like, their surroundings change at once. And the instant switch from morning light to what seems like a dark cave briefly has Sam's eyes dilating like a drug addict's and his head throbbing.

"We're below an abandoned church in Maine," she says, watching his bad reaction to the light change with indifference.

"Couldn't you have just teleported to the entrance?" Sam asks, annoyed and still aching, but not so much that it's affecting his sight.

"Beggars can't be choosers, Sammy-poo."

Sam glares and then strides head-first into the center of the Crypt, at first scanning the whole place frantically before remembering that he isn't trying to beat the clock this time. Honestly, what he'd like to do for a minute is just stand there and revel in exactly  _where_  he is right now.

"...How old is this place?" he wonders aloud, and his voice comes out oddly calm.

"Older than me, if that gives you any bearing," Meg tells him with the same sort of calm, leaning against the threshold and seemingly amused by his awe. "Older than the Fall. ...It's like you can just  _feel_  his presence, isn't it? Like, whatever's left over from the power he used to build this."

Sam couldn't have put it better himself.

Alright, the moment's over. He should really start looking.

So while Meg mostly stands and watches, Sam walks along the edges of the octagonal room and searches as thoroughly as he possibly can. It all ends up far more straightforward than expected, though, as the Crypt isn't exactly lined with stone tablets or ancient tomes for him to skim through. There's hardly anything he's actually capable of lifting, let alone anything that has any kind of writing on it. His determination keeps him checking and re-checking for nearly an hour until Meg insists on just going to the next one and just coming back later if nothing turns up in the other Crypts.

The next one is somewhere in the Amazon, and the first glance inside gives him much more hope than before. There's a few stacked goblets on one end that probably do something really important, but there's no sign as to exactly what.

"Maybe you drink from them and get eternal life?" Sam offers.

"What use would Lucifer have in hiding them, then?"

"Maybe he just wanted to be an asshole."

In the center there's a platform that holds some kind of bone. It looks potentially human, but they both doubt that it is. Meg makes a guess at a bone from Lilith's original body.

After another fruitless hour of searching, Meg teleports them to Egypt. Sam is starting to get the idea of  _seven crypts, seven continents_. It would only make sense.

During this hour, Sam very nearly ends up stripping from the heat. But he'd rather not have his pseudo-stepdaughter's eyes raking over him so he at least keeps on his first layer of plaid.

_Note to self: start wearing undershirts. If monsters don't kill you, flannel will._

"I think Azazel took something from this Crypt about thirty years ago," Meg muses from her corner when Sam looks close to giving up. He immediately snaps his head over to look her her and frown―"Don't get your panties in a bunch, it couldn't have been anything you could use. I'm pretty sure it wasn't even regarding the apocalypse. Maybe a necklace?―He never showed me, but it was small, so."

For a few short seconds, Sam fingers the amulet in his pocket―the one that Bobby gave him all those years ago, and which Dean never saw him pull out of the wastebin.  _...Nah, couldn't be,_  he decides.

"Can we just get going?"

Less than two seconds later, they're in a small Spanish town. Or―underneath it, really. Another two seconds, and Sam already has the feeling that they won't need to search any further than this Crypt.

Along one wall is, written in perfect English, what seems to be... a prophecy? No―after reading a few lines it becomes obvious that this is  _the_  prophecy. The one foretelling the Fall and then, thousands of years later, the birth of a man who would bring an end to Lucifer's imprisonment and be The Vessel. It tells that the soul of The Vessel will be a shard of Lucifer himself, and that it is to live a continuous cycle of lives following the death of Abel, in case needed due to destiny being tampered with.

When it begins speaking of the apocalypse, Sam can tell that this is different than what the demons put in charge of breaking the Seals must have heard. Because all it really tells of the apocalypse is that  _the Cage shall be opened, and Lucifer and The Vessel shall be reunited at last_.

Sam is so engrossed in what he's reading that for the longest time, he forgets that Meg is there with him.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?" he asks once his eyes have reached the bottom of the wall. Somehow, he can't find it in him to sound accusing. "How could you forget about the fucking  _Prophecy_  on the wall?"

"You can read those scribbles?" is all she says at first, walking over to stand with him and stare at the wall. "That doesn't even look like Enochian..."

"It was made for me."

As he closes the distance between himself and the wall, reaching out to touch, Meg stares after him.

"Are you saying―?"

"That I was the only one ever meant to read it? Yes, exactly. Except probably Lucifer. Why else would he hide it here...?"

As Sam's fingers brush over the cold stone, two concave squares in the floor become apparent to him. One is empty, and the other holds a tablet slightly larger than the ones Kevin translated. He bends down to pick it up without thinking, and finds that this, too, seems (in his eyes, at least) to be written in English.

It's not like how Kevin described reading the tablets―it doesn't hurt. He doesn't have to think or focus or consciously translate anything. But then he supposes that these are completely different circumstances.

"What's that?" Meg asks, sounding hopeful due to the look on Sam's face as he reads it.

As he looks up, his eyes aren't quite focused on her due the overwhelming onslaught of information and that he's still processing just what this means. But then he feels sure of what to call it, and their stares are locked.

"It's the Lucifer Tablet," he breathes.

* * *

 

"It's more like an editor's note to the Prophecy written on the wall," Sam confesses later, in their motel room. "Since, I mean. It probably isn't a Word of God that a prophet could read."

"I really don't care what you call it as long as there's a way to open the Cage on there," Meg says, leaning over to stare at the tablet even though she has no way of reading it herself.

"There's a list, actually."

The first method listed essentially just says " _see other tablet_ ," which he can only assume held the list of Seals, and which Azazel must have taken. And of course the point of said method only works in the context of the apocalypse, which has already come and gone.

The second gives instructions regarding the Horsemen's rings―basically everything Gabriel told them before. And not only are the rings gone without any hope of ever coming back, but the opening it creates only goes one way. It's meant strictly for forcing new occupants  _in_.

The third option shows how to allow Lucifer back into Heaven and destroy the Cage altogether. For a split second Sam sees hope in this one, but several angels are required in order to administer the spell, and he can't imagine that there's anyone who would like to help him. Or that any good would come of Lucifer suddenly being back home, where he's most hated.

But the fourth... it's actually doable. And it's only him who can do it. Some of the steps are a bit gruesome, but they're nothing Sam can't handle. There's a warning at the end, however―

_To open the Cage without rituals such as the Seals takes a tremendous and unearthly amount of power. During the spell, The Vessel shall forge a brief connection with Lucifer, who will be unwillingly drained of grace. By all definitions, what comes out of the Cage will be undeniably Lucifer, but human as well. As The Vessel is the one who forces the Second Fall, it is the imagined form of The Vessel who Lucifer will take._

Part of Sam feels like this is utterly unfair to do to him, and even Meg hesitates once he tells her the consequences. But then, Sam figures, what other choice does he have? So Lucifer won't be able to take him as a vessel this time, that's about the only disappointing factor on Sam's part. So what? They won't be able to share a body, but  _beggars can't be choosers_. Having Lucifer physically by his side should be better in some ways, even.

Once it's decided, Meg's only question is: "So what's he going to look like when he gets out?"

"Exactly like I expect him to, I guess."

It only takes a little over a week to procure everything they need. Once again, this whole situation just seems too easy for there not to be a catch―but then Sam remembers that he's already accepted the catch.

Besides, it doesn't seem like the sort of thing that  _should_  be any more difficult than it's already been. Sam is the only person who could ever possibly do this spell, and it results in something that will be beneficial only to Sam's happiness―not to mention how much work it took for him just to find the Crypts.

Three rituals are required just for the ingredients, all of a similar nature and in particular order: He must acquire blood from a demon, then a human, then from himself. It doesn't say he absolutely must kill them, but the endgame calls for enough blood to create a sigil at least a meter wide, so draining two adult-sized men seems like the way to go.

Meg seems both slightly afraid and impressed with how willing Sam is to go find an innocent person, knock them out, string them up in a warehouse, carve a symbol into their chest while they're  _still alive_ , and then drain them. The demon was one thing, but Sam watches impassively as the man before him bleeds to death, and it's perfectly noticeable.

"You seem different," she finally says, after helping him collect all of the drained blood into gallon bottles.

"What do you mean?" Sam frowns, though he knows  _exactly_  what she means.

"I  _mean_ : where'd all your remorse and insecurity go? Or, were you just a psychopath this whole time without anyone knowing?"

Sam actively decides not to defend the second question, mostly because he knows he can't give a sure answer. But he doesn't see any problem with making his emotional situation clear as he carries the blood to the trunk with her.

"I don't have anyone to prove anything to anymore, so."

"Figured."

There's no specification that the blood needs to be evenly distributed, and Sam can make an educated guess that he doesn't need to literally  _kill_  himself for this, so a quart of his own blood ought to do. He carves the symbol into his own arm and recites the given incantation at the same time, then simply lets the blood drip into a bucket until they have enough.

Finally, the location of the resurrection must be where the gate was last opened. Before the apocalypse, that place would have been the abandoned convent in Ilchester―though perhaps whoever wrote this knew that the apocalypse would be averted before The Vessel would ever use this spell. It all seems more and more to be meant as a last resort, the more he gets into it.

So that means a trip back to Stull Cemetery, back to where it all started. Again.

Meg has no argument against leaving as soon as possible, and it seems that the both of them are overwhelmed with excitement and anxiety over what is to come within just hours.

_This is it._

Sam can't believe how quickly he managed to get this finished. It feels like forever ago that this was an idea that had just breached certainty, and now it's so nearly done he can quite literally feel himself vibrating. This is the closest to Lucifer he's been in two years, and he's getting closer with every second.

When they step out of the impala in that cemetery outside of Lawrence, Sam swears everything is the same as when he was last here. The sun's place in the sky, they slight wind... it's as though it's all welcoming him back. While Meg goes to grab the blood from the trunk, Sam at first simply walks forward until he finds the spot where he and Lucifer once stood, waiting for Michael. All of it comes rushing back to him at once―the way it felt to be in one body, the way their thoughts ran together and how it felt so natural, more natural than thinking on his own, even...

"Here," he announces, looking down at where he remembers falling and physically  _feeling_  the martyrdom mark his soul. As he looks up Meg nods, closes the trunk, and brings the blood to him.

Slowly and steadily, Sam pours out the blood in a sigil similar to what formed when the Cage initially opened back in that church. He does it as carefully as he possibly can, terrified that he might fuck up. But it comes out perfectly, and when he steps back, his heart feels ready to jump out of his throat.

"Go stand by the car," he tells Meg, and she looks mildly offended but does as he says anyway. Sam's eyes stare straight ahead, emotionless but for determination, and he is perfectly aware that he's standing the same way he did with Lucifer in him. Now that he's here and finally doing this, it all feels like perfect symmetry.

_Alright. I'm ready for this._

As Sam reads through the incantation, the blood sigil on the ground grows thicker and thicker. The blood of those three who mandate Lucifer's imprisonment: the demons, whose creation ensured his punishment; the humans, who are forever tainted because of him, and The Vessel, who was always meant to save him. Together they erase the Prophecy, and they thicken and thicken until the sigil is no more than a solid circle of blood on the ground.

Just as Sam allows the final word to roll off his lips, there is a simultaneous crack of thunder and a deep hole forming in the ground at the center of the blood circle. As it widens, the sky darkens, and clouds roll in as though Heaven is rushing in to watch Lucifer walk the earth once again.

Meg watches the sky, but Sam's eyes are glued so firmly to the widening chasm that he hardly notices the growing wind around him, violently whipping his hair and jacket around―he watches the blood seep into it, and though he can't see it happening he's almost positive that the blood is forming to make Lucifer's human body. And then he can  _feel_  it, he  _knows_  he can feel the presence of Lucifer's grace and moments later light pours from the chasm but he cannot tear his eyes away. Somehow he feels it in his heart―he's sure that it won't kill him.

And then he feels the grace fading, and his heart is shortly heavy with grief but then the light begins fading as well. It's  _happening_.

Behind him Meg whispers Sam's name in breathtaking victory, and he ignores her. He's seeing exactly what she's seeing.

All at once, the light disappears and it suddenly seems much darker around them than it was before. The hole is gone and so is the blood, and standing in the center of where it was minutes before is a naked, middle-aged man, standing like a startled deer and seemingly terrified at everything around him. Until he sees―

" _Sam_."

" _Lucifer_ ," he breathes back, a crack in his voice in the split second he nearly starts crying.

They both seem to be frozen where they stand, barely five feet separating them. Part of Sam believes that there's no way all of this can be real, it's simply too good to ever be his life, he  _knows_  he's going to wake up with a beer in one hand any second now―

"I'm human."

Out of all the things that Lucifer could have said next, it seems that makes the most sense to him. Not " _you freed me_ " or " _thank you_ " or even " _how?_ " But the fact that he says  _anything_  is what breaks Sam's overwhelming disbelief and sends him striding forward until there's just an inch between them and his hands are at Lucifer's face. And then he's smiling so wide it hurts and struggling to keep it steady because his emotions are anything but quiet.

"I missed you so much...," is what Sam first thinks to tell him, at which Lucifer's hands come up quick and desperate to cover his.

"Sam, you... and I'm― _how_?" This is probably the first time in history that Lucifer has had so much trouble finding the right words, and there's no doubt he's extremely upset about it. He's  _so_  so happy to see Sam but confused as  _fuck_ ―possibly more confused than he ever was about why his father stopped loving him―and he's lost and sad and angry about being lost and sad, and even angry about being angry. And all of it is in the lines of his face or behind his eyes, and Sam wants to cry for him.

"I'm sorry," Sam says, softening his grip on Lucifer's face and shifting himself closer, until their foreheads are just barely touching. "I'm  _so_  sorry, but it was the only way to get you out, and I... I needed you here. I've needed you since the moment I left and I shouldn't have been willing to sacrifice your grace for it, it was selfish, but―"

Lucifer stops the indistinct apologetic rambling by pulling Sam close enough that he can press his face into his neck. And there they simply hold each other, for the first time in much too long, no regard for the storm clouds clearing up and the world growing brighter again, or for Meg standing out there and watching.

" _Sam_ ," comes Lucifer's voice after a minute, broken and muffled by his tear-soaked collar. "Sam, I―I don't know...  _I don't know how to do this._  My wings are gone and my grace is gone and everything feels so quiet and cold and  _huge_ , and― and―I missed you so much  _but I don't know how to be human, Sam_."

He holds him tighter then, running his hand through Lucifer's hair and pressing lips chaste against his forehead. Sam feels so horrible seeing like this, and part of him wishes he hadn't done the spell before it occurs to him that Lucifer won't be distressed like this forever.

"It's okay, I'm here," he keeps reassuring him softly. "I'm  _here_ , Lucifer, I'm with you and I'm not leaving anymore."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know that canonically, Crowley didn't realize there was an Angel Tablet until torturing Samandriel. But this fic is already essentially a rewrite of the interim between Season 7 and 8--what should have happened instead of the somewhat ooc choices Sam canonically made. So I figure there isn't any damage done in changing some of the other stupid writing from Season 8. 
> 
> How would Crowley not have any idea that there's an Angel Tablet? He is EXTREMELY smart, I mean--way smarter than the Winchesters at times. He was the only independent demon before the apocalypse, and he seemed to be the only one who understood the fact that Lucifer didn't actually like or even care about demons. It's even hinted that Crowley was once an angel himself, which I strongly believe to be true. At the very least, he definitely would have guessed at the existence of an angel tablet. Seriously--Leviathan and demons both have tablets, so why wouldn't there be one for angels? 
> 
> But I suppose that didn't work for the way the plot was going on the show, did it.


	3. Just our hands clasped so tight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is from the song 'I Will Follow You Into the Dark' by Death Cab For Cutie.

"Maybe you should put some clothes on," Sam finally says when they both seem to have calmed down. It's easier to deal with this whole situation by getting the small things out of the way first—and in all seriousness, it's kind of weird standing out here with a completely naked Lucifer in his arms.

Lucifer steps back and looks down as though he hadn't realized beforehand that he was naked. It makes sense, though, considering he's never known what it's like to be the size of a mere human soul and to feel permanently attached to the vessel. More permanent than in Sam's body, that is— _frustratingly_  permanent.

"I suppose I should. It's cold."

"I have a few sets of clothes in the car that should fit you—" he starts, turning around to head back to the impala, but he stops once he realizes that there's no one over there anymore. "Where's Meg?"

Lucifer frowns. "You had Meg with you?"

"She helped me get you back—and she was here a minute ago..." Sam steps forward and looks around, shouting her name once. They'd made the agreement that they would part ways once Lucifer came back, but Sam never thought she would want to leave so soon. She would want to stay long enough to say hi to the guy she helped bring back, at least.

"I wouldn't be surprised if she was nervous to see me again," Lucifer offers, now by Sam's side again.

Yeah. That must be it.

Sam decides to shrug it off and just get Lucifer some clothes from the back seat. No use sweating the disappearance of a demon.

"I've got a different body type than you, so I figured the shoulders on my shirts would be too wide and my pants might be too tight... but these used to be Dean's, so they should be your size. I assume you don't need any help?"

Lucifer takes the pair of boxers from the pile and gives Sam a brief look while he pulls them on. "I know how to put clothes on, yes. I did  _invent_  them, you know."

"Really?" Sam raises an eyebrow and grins amusedly.

"Well, I invented the concept of wearing clothes specifically for the reason of not being naked. I'm sure you know the whole story with Adam and Eve and the Serpent? Humanity never would have realized that they were exposed if not for me."

"Thank God you enlightened us all," Sam jokes without thinking—and at the mention of his father, Lucifer looks up at him.  _Shit, awkward._  "Sorry."

"It's true, though. All I did in the beginning was enlighten and I only ever tempted anyone to take what they deserved in the first place. Well, except for Lilith, but that was a bit later and... you know." Sam only responds to that with a nod, and Lucifer doesn't say anything else for the time being.

Once he's dressed, though, he flattens the black button-up over his chest, furrow his brow, and asks, "So where  _is_ Dean?"

"He's dead," Sam tells him simply.

Lucifer's shoulders soften. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. If he was still alive, I never would have been able to get you back."

There's a long pause of silence in which they stand at arm's length and stare at each other, and in which Sam and Lucifer seem to fully realize and accept that they've both changed since the last time they saw each other. Not better or worse, but just different.

Sam closes the distance with one hand, reaching out to run his hand through Lucifer's hair and fix it where the wind mussed it up. Then Lucifer's expression changes and he stares at Sam so intently it's like he's trying to read his mind, eyes drifting up and down his body before he finally says—

"I can't see your soul anymore." The way his voice sounds is even more heartbreaking than before, and all Sam can do is stare back sadly. "...That's the worst part of this, honestly."

Then Lucifer reaches out as well and his hand brushes Sam's chest for a moment before he lets it drop, but Sam pulls it back up again and holds it to his heart.

"We'll both get used to this," he promises. "It won't hurt forever."

"How can you know that for sure?"

"Because that's part of being human. We always learn to manage."

Another several seconds of silence passes, and Sam thinks they should both get going—not because he's in any hurry, he just wants to be on the road. Though there is one thing he'd like to do while they're still at Stull Cemetery, if he can. So he leans against the side of the car and pulls Lucifer just slightly closer by the neck.

"Do you think we could...?—I mean, I didn't want to do it before because you were upset and naked, and I know you're still upset, but—"

"I haven't seen you in thousands of years, Sam. Of course."

Then his hand shifts from the middle of Sam's chest to grab the loose part of his shirt so he can tug him down for a long kiss. And there's barely any height difference between them so it's easy and smooth and Sam wishes  _so_  much that they could have done this before jumping in the pit together, just lean up against the impala and kiss the way teenagers do when they have nothing in the world to worry about.

And while Sam's attached to his lips he feels Lucifer, for the first time since he left the Cage, smiling.

* * *

 

Meg barely has any time to panic in between feeling the pull of the summons and being forcibly transported 1500 miles away. And once she's there, in the dim light, she can't help but think what convenient timing that was, at least.

Around her is a trashed basement, and it takes half a second for her to recognize it as the same exact place she was summoned to the last time. The only difference: there's a new sigil. And she's standing in it.

"Should've taken the time to clean up your tracks, love," comes a scratchy, British voice from the doorway. Meg didn't even have to hear it to know that this was Crowley, and she hesitates to turn and actually look at his disgusting face. "Granted, though," he continues as he steps further inside the room and closer to her, "it did take me a while to consider this place, find the sigil, put two and two together, and then find the spell to summon you... Adatiel."

"Why does everyone think it's so funny to call me by my ' _real_ ' name?" is the only thing she says, frowning uneasily in response to Crowley's smirk.

"Which, of course, leads me to the question:  _What_  exactly did Moose summon you for?"

"Help with the remaining Leviathans," she spits out, trying her hardest to make it seem like the truth. Which actually isn't that hard at all, considering how much practice she has in acting.

"Hm." Crowley gives a businessman sort of nod, folds his arms, and begins pacing. "Very convincing work, but still a lie. Sam can get any old hunter for that, and he doesn't like you enough for you to be his first choice."

"Apparently he does."

"Except I can  _also_  tell that you haven't been anywhere near a Leviathan since Dick Roman was finished off. Try again."

Crowley's smile is catlike, and he stops dramatically in front of Meg to show that he's won this short debate.

_Well fuck._

"What do you want from me, Crowley?" she asks lazily, after a considerable silence.

" _Don't play games with me, whore_!" he yells, and at this point it doesn't faze her. He always seems to save one drastic mood swing for every encounter, so it's expected. "If Sam Winchester went to the lengths that he did to get your help, then it's something I should bloody well know about. And it looks like it's one more thing I'll have to torture out of you...  _Boys_!"

Two demon grunts appear behind Meg at once, grab her, and vanish to one of Crowley's various warehouses. Satisfied with his situation, he doesn't bother with the stairs and simply wills himself to appear in the main room of the cabin, where there are two remaining grunts.

"I'd like you to straighten this place back up. Fix everything you turned over, make it look  _exactly_  like it did when we got here, got it?" They nod, seeming vaguely nervous. "Alright. I also need you to stay here and wait for Sam Winchester. He's bound to come back to this place at some point, and I want you to jump him and bring him to me when and if he does."

One of the demons steps forward just slightly. "What if he never comes back?"

"Then just keep waiting," Crowley smirks, heading out the door. He really doesn't need to physically walk out of the cabin to leave, but it helps for dramatic effect. "Oh, and one more thing. Do  _not_ , under any circumstances, kill him. I'd rather have him out of my grasp than utterly useless to me."

* * *

 

Sam decides that the first thing they need to do is get Lucifer some shoes. A new wardrobe altogether (because he has no problem buying more clothes and Lucifer deserves to actually  _choose_  what he wants to wear, not to mention they'd both prefer that he doesn't just dress like Dean) can wait until tomorrow, though, since it's already evening.

In the two hours it takes to find somewhere that sells shoes which is also open this late, Lucifer does a lot of staring out the window and Sam can't stop glancing over and smiling. He's just so happy that they're finally together again, and he can't imagine that he'll ever get over it.

And as he consistently looks over, he notices Lucifer squirming a lot in his seat.

"Impatient?" he asks once they're reached a stoplight, briefly reaching over to touch his shoulder.

"Mm," Lucifer grunts softly, frowning down at his lap and adjusting his seatbelt. "Castiel was right, this is slow."

"I'm sure everything humans do is slow compared to angel flight," Sam offers, trying not to sound too blunt but also not overly sympathetic. He doesn't want to get Lucifer upset by reminding him of being an angel too much, but coddling him wouldn't have great results, either.

"Speaking of Castiel, did he die too?"

_Dammit._  He wasn't going to mention it, as he'd forgotten that Lucifer must have realized it was Castiel who grabbed his body out of the Cage. But now he has no choice but to look him in the eye and tell him the truth.

"He and Dean died at the same time."

_Oh._

Lucifer allows himself a minute to mourn Castiel. He's always been fond of him, even before the Fall.

They also both take a moment to think of how romantic their death really was..

"How did it happen?"

Sam sighs inwardly, knowing he'll have to catch him up on everything later. But he can at least give simple answers now. "They died while destroying Leviathan. Chop off the head and the body will flounder, you know. But the head also exploded and took Dean and Cas with it."

Immediately, Lucifer makes a disgusted face. " _Those_  things were up here? How did they get out of Purgatory?"

" _That_  is a long story that's part of an even longer story, and it would really be much easier to tell it in order and to wait until we're someplace stationary."

"So stop the car and tell me the story."

And then he sighs outwardly, but mostly in amusement. "It doesn't work like that. I just got onto the highway—and we need to go get you shoes before we find a place for the night, remember?"

"Oh. Right."

Big-name corporations are usually something Sam avoids, but he doesn't have nearly as big of a reason to be worried anymore, so Walmart is the easy choice. It's open 24-7 and just about the only place open with shoes right now.

"People are probably gonna look at you weird because you're barefoot," Sam decides to let him know when they step out of the car. "But it's also Walmart and we're still technically in the south so there'll probably be weirder people here."

"Weirder than a guy who used to be the Devil?" Lucifer says with a grin, leaning over the roof of the car. It's the first joke he's told since he came back, and Sam is utterly relieved. If he's telling jokes, he must be lightening up.

"Yes, actually."

Lucifer thinks he's kidding. He's not kidding.

As they walk across the parking lot, Lucifer surprisingly doesn't express any discomfort from walking on pavement barefoot. But then Sam supposes that he's had his fair share of pain all those millions of years in the Cage, so he's likely still numbed to it even in a human body. Which is actually rather convenient because if they get into any trouble, at least Lucifer won't whine about any physical pain.

He does, however, seem to have a hard time walking straight and completely balanced the whole time. And he explains it as feeling too front-heavy without his wings (if being infinitely smaller than usual isn't enough for his balance), but then also occasionally feeling as though he actually still has them.

"Every few minutes or so I try to extend one until I remember it isn't there anymore," he says, rolling around his shoulder blades just to make sure. "And then a few times in the past hour I've started feeling sharp pain where there's nothing. I can only guess it's a fallen angel thing."

"Nah, it happens to human amputees all the time. It's called phantom pain."

Giving him a short grimace, Sam rubs his hand over Lucifer's upper back in a small but hopeful attempt to help. And when he lets his hand fall to his side, Lucifer grabs it, trying to make the action seem absentminded though it was very obviously on purpose.

Just as he's been doing for two hours, Sam glances over and smiles widely, and for a brief moment Lucifer frowns as if to ask whether he should have done that or not. Instead of saying anything, Sam simply fixes the awkward grip between their hands so that their fingers are actually interlocking.

They're mainly here to buy shoes, but Sam figures that while they're here they might as well get some food, too. Lucifer hasn't eaten  _ever_  in the entire history of time, and he's going to need to eat something soon. So Sam gets a couple microwaveable meals and a box of those soft sugar cookies that are delicious no matter  _who_  you are.

While walking around, Sam has to do a lot of explaining about corporate monopolies and capitalism because Lucifer has a  _lot_  of questions. By the end of it, what he comes out with is "Oh, so the economy basically works like Heaven."

They also get some non-prescription pain meds for Lucifer in case it might help with the phantom pain. And around that aisle is where Lucifer finally notices the odd looks they're getting from other shoppers, and subsequently asks why.

"You know, because we're holding hands and we're both men," Sam explains. "And we're also in the south, so."

A disgusted and confused expression graces Lucifer's features again. "People still care about that?"

"Did you not catch wind of it the last time you were topside?"

"I wasn't really paying attention to that sort of thing. Bringing the apocalypse and getting up-to-date with all of modern culture that had anything to do with me was very time-consuming."

It turns out that Lucifer's shoe size is 11, a whopping two sizes down from Sam's, which he very briefly makes fun of him for. Lucifer doesn't understand why it's funny until Sam explains the implication behind having big feet, however. And then he only sort of understands because the concept of penis size mattering so much, even ironically, is a new one.

Once they pay for their things and step back out into the lamplit parking lot, it occurs to Sam that Lucifer hasn't let go of his hand during this entire shopping trip except once to try on shoes, which he wears out of the store. It's adorable, really. He has to wonder, though—

"Are you holding my hand because you really want to or just because you think it's a thing couples are supposed to do?"

Lucifer looks at him and promptly tightens his grip. "Doing things specifically because I feel like I'm  _supposed_  to sort of goes against my entire existence, Sam." He clearly doesn't feel the need to answer any more elaborately because he doesn't. Fair enough.

Really, he just loves the constant attachment. Being a human can't be so bad if he's constantly touching Sam.

Steps away from the impala's trunk, however, there's a sudden hand on Lucifer's should that can't be Sam's, and he panics enough to let go and twist around, and then clutch at Sam again because he remembers that he's powerless  _and_  weaponless.

But the man who stopped them is entirely unfamiliar and doesn't look at all ready to hurt them. To further the surprise and contrast, he looks to be in awe as his eyes turn black.

"Lucifer," the demon says, and that is when they  _really_  begin to panic. "We knew you'd come back."

* * *

 

The more Meg refuses to tell Crowley what she was doing with Sam or where he is now, the more obvious it will be that it's something that would be vital information to him. She knows this. So she keeps coming up with new lies, avoiding anything regarding Lucifer's Crypts. Or anything even in the same ballpark.

But Crowley keeps seeing them for what they are.  _Lies_. And five is just about the limit, after which it's not helping anyone to continue fabricating more fake situations. So after hours and hours of being torn to shreds and getting her bones kicked in worse than before Sam summoned her away, she gives in to the vague truth.

Let it be known that she has  _not_  been broken. Not yet. That would take months, and Meg has learned to be just as stupidly loyal as the Winchesters. No, she's not giving up, she is  _not_  weak—she's simply doing the smart thing. And she knows that if she throws that British bastard a bone, he'll be significantly less angry than when she was straight-out lying. He'll be less brutal with the torture.

"He needed my help with personal matters," she says with as much dignity as a demon can when they're choking on blood. Now, at least, Crowley will quit shouting the same question over and over.

Narrowing his eyes, Crowley does as expected and steps away to think for a moment. And then his attention is directly back on Meg.

"Personal matters that only a demon can help him with." It's not a question. He doesn't expect her to nod or argue, he's just making assumptions out loud. "That he must have thought  _you_  would be willing to help him with. Which narrows it down to—oh, the little bugger's trying to find a way to kill me, isn't he? All by himself. How cute."

Meg makes no movement to confirm or deny, and especially not to give the slightest hint that she's playing him.

And of course Crowley didn't think she would. All he knows now is that he has a general idea of what Sam Winchester is doing, and the general assumption that he's going to fail. But then, as always, the King of Hell refuses to underestimate even a now lone  _denim-wrapped nightmare_ , so.

Now left with the need to ponder his options, he continues his short break from Meg-torture by sitting down and thinking.

He's still got Kevin locked away, so there's that. If there's any way to kill Crowley outside of close-range combat at this point, it's in a tablet far away from Sam.

But then, of course, the guy once killed the Grand Torturer of Hell with his bloody  _mind_ , so with enough demon blood there's no telling what's possible. Sam can get the blood from random demons on the streets—but how would he even have known that Meg was with him or would be able to figure out where Crowley is? And why not just summon him in order to kill him?

It's all still very iffy. For now, the order is simply more demons on guard. He can't afford to send out all of his good soldiers trying to find a man who could be  _anywhere_.

The Meg-torture resumes.

* * *

 

"I  _prayed_  for it—so many of us did! ...I thought I recognized you but I felt no power coming from you so I couldn't be sure until I saw you with Sam Winchester—But why are you still using the Plan B vessel?"

When all Lucifer does is continue to clutch at Sam and stare concernedly at the demon, he seems to worry.

"Shit, sorry—should I be getting on my knees?" he asks frantically, and then it's obvious how low-level (and just stupid) a demon this is because he drops to the ground before he can even get an answer.

He bows as well, and as only the demon's back is exposed, Lucifer smirks in pride down at the pathetically worshipful demon and then back up to Sam, who frowns.

"How many others know that I've returned?" Lucifer asks, somehow able to keep his voice level despite the situation.

The demon looks up, seemingly excited to even have been spoken to. "I only knew once I saw you, so as far as I know, none. Do you want me to tell them?"

In place of Lucifer saying  _hell fucking no_ , Sam swiftly pulls out Ruby's knife from his jacket and kills the demon in a single stabbing motion. There's just enough time for it to flash an electric orange and fall limp before Sam's wiping the blood off on his jeans and freaking the fuck out.

" _Shit_. Shit, shit, shit—Jesus fucking  _shit_. You've been out for less than four hours, and you've already been recognized. How many demons saw you in this body the last time you were up here?"

In a turn of events, now it's Lucifer who has to calm Sam down. They both realize it but the thought doesn't really help as much as you'd think.

"All of those who helped me directly—so most of the higher-level demons and a handful of grunts who did some reporting back-and-forth. Plus some of the pathetic fans who came to watch some of the bigger events of... mass murder. Which isn't that many—trust me, Sam, it was just pure bad luck and coincidence that this happened. It even said that it had to see me to recognize me, which means that the demons didn't feel the Cage opening and they  _can't_  feel my presence anymore."

"I know, I know," Sam tries to say, but the pace of his heart and breath doesn't slow down as soon as he wants it to. "It's just, if it somehow gets to Crowley that you're out of the Cage and  _powerless_ —"

"Then we can consider ourselves dead," Lucifer finishes. He's aware of Crowley and how he's crawled to the top since Lucifer officially left the chessboard, and that's obvious enough to Sam that he doesn't feel the need to elaborate.

"Worse than dead, actually." Sam wipes his face the way he normally does in times of emotional distress, and then spends a few seconds staring at the dead demon in front of them. "At least we know the angels didn't sense the Cage opening either, or else we'd have met one by now... Fuck, I knew these would be consequences, too, I have no idea why I'm so surprised."

Maybe because he anticipated finally being with Lucifer again much more than he worried about the dangers of his plan.

That's definitely the reason, but thinking about it doesn't make him feel better.

Just standing out here feels like a risk. Like angels or demons could appear at any second and take them while they're staying in this one spot. But then Sam reminds himself, again, that this is how his life has always been. It looks like he now has no way of fully escaping that life, but—

"If it makes you feel better, it's worth it, to me," Lucifer says to break the anxiety-ridden silence. "Never once in my existence have I had any reason to truly fear for my life, or even be so uncertain of my future... but now that I am, it's okay because at least I can be uncertain with you." With that, he reaches out to intertwine their fingers again. "We can hold hands in this darkness, Sam."

It's as though all at once, in a romantic and poetic fashion, Lucifer has thrown his worry aside. Or at least it's not crippling him anymore.

After a moment, Sam squeezes his hand in agreement.

The dead demon vessel is heaved into the trunk for now so they can get rid of it later, and within a couple minutes they're on the highway again, headed to the nearest lake to dump the body in and subsequently to the nearest motel.

Sam finds it  _ridiculously_  satisfying to hear the assumption of "Let me guess, one King?" from the motel clerk when she books a room for them. Partially because for once it's not happening with him and his own brother, but mostly because he's glad that he and Lucifer look like a couple even when they're not touching each other. Now that he knows how much danger they're in, he's got to love the little things, at least.

For their safety, the first thing they do once they get a room is ward it from Crowley, from demons in general, and from angels. On that note, they both agree that Lucifer needs to get protective symbols tattooed as soon as possible.

And because Sam promised earlier, the second thing they do is go through the chronological order of events from when Sam's soul left the Cage to right before Lucifer left as well.

All the memories from his soulless stage are fairly uncomfortable for the both of them, so for the most part Sam skips it. What he does tell from that time is Crowley's work to find Purgatory, ordering Castiel to bring him and his grandfather back, and all of the Alphas that got hunted down and tortured for information. Lucifer already knows the deal with Death which returned Sam's soul to his body, so he can skip that, too.

The story of Castiel's attempt to fix Heaven (and corruption in the process) is one that has Lucifer particularly interested, and after he's heard all the consequences of Cas's mistakes, he's still probably the only one who doesn't blame the guy at all. Even less so than Sam, who knows just as well what it's like to fuck up so badly but with the best of intentions.

With the mention of Eve and the Leviathan unsurprisingly comes another disgusted look from Lucifer, who is then compelled to explain what they are—were?—what they  _truly_  are. Death explained it once, though as old as he is, Sam has no doubt Lucifer will make it clearer for him.

They're lying on their sides on the bed now, and as Lucifer begins the story it feels vaguely like a childhood sleepover.

"They're the older siblings I never wanted. They were...  _prototypes_. To most of the angels they were horror stories to be put away, but whatever God had ever seen shone through my eyes as well, so I knew the secrets that he kept. And I kept them because, as you know, I was a blindly loyal son for some time. The Leviathan were easy to explain to the others—God took the very concept of  _hunger_  and made children out of just that, and those were the Leviathan. The first beasts—pure hunger given sentience. And somehow—I don't know how  _no one_  ever wondered how this could be true—God supposedly didn't realize what he was creating. He apparently didn't predict that these beasts would swallow the universe whole if he didn't create a new dimension to drop them in. That's what he told us, but I could see there was  _some_  ulterior motive—and you know what I think it was?

"Experiments. God never said it himself but now I'm almost sure he just  _wanted to see what would happen_. He created the most monstrous things that could ever possibly exist—something with the ability to consume and kill anything but Death himself—and locked them away  _but_  with a way out. Why not just destroy them? Why even allow the  _possibility_  of Leviathan devouring the earth like they nearly did?

"And then... there's Eve. Eve, the Mother of All—is a hybrid. I imagine that God, the Leviathans, Eve herself, and I are the only beings who actually know that. And now you, Sam. After God decided his first batch of children were defective and created us, the angels, I suppose at some point he became curious. As to what would happen if he took that sentient hunger and merged it with the pure creation that angels are made from, that is.

"So in all technicality, Eve is half-Leviathan, half-angel. She's a mutt and an abomination and, as you know, God had to lock her away too. I can only guess he expected that the natural will to follow orders that angels have would be in her, too, but the hunger betrayed him and she was inexplicably gifted with free will. With the pure power of Creation, she could spawn any sort of monster that she could  _think_  of. I believe she's the only other accidental primordial being God has created—me being the first, of course. I felt sorry for her when she was locked away, I honestly did. As disgusting as her existence is, God punished her for his own crime.

"While Purgatory was originally intended to be a cage, Eve turned it into a kingdom. And somehow, long after I was in my own cage, she hauled herself out and created the Alphas, and then presumably was thrown back in. All that you told me of her second rising... I understand why she did it, and her bitterness towards God. Her plan was, in theory, the same as mine—but the difference between us is that I had you to help me understand why I needed to stop. She never would have stopped. But in spite of that... she must have been a better mother to her children than the father God barely attempted to be to any of us. She never abandoned them."

Sam waits an entire minute to make sure Lucifer is done. He can't believe that Lucifer managed to explain  _all_  of that in one go, but then in retrospect he realizes that eloquence is a basic component of his personality and a lack of grace can't take that away. It's a part of him that Sam deeply admires, too, so he's glad for it.

Mostly, it's really that he can't believe he's probably the only human to ever have the privilege of knowing the origins of Creation.

But Sam's retelling of events isn't quite over. Once he's done getting out his "wow"s over Lucifer's explanation (in place of the worthy response he'll need longer to come up with), Sam tells him about the mundane weeks he spent alone, and how the idea of opening the Cage came about, and all that he did to get it done. All the books, the vague translations, and then Meg who is apparently Adatiel, and then the Crypts.

And as soon as he mentions those, Lucifer becomes very alert and immediately asks to see the tablet Sam got the instructions from.

"I knew that spell sounded familiar," he mutters to himself as his eyes scan the section that Sam read from to get him out. For about twenty seconds after reading through it, Lucifer simply stares at the stone tablet looking increasingly more concerned.

"Sam."

"Yeah?"

"How certain are you that I am the  _only_  thing you let out of the Cage? Did you see anything else rising out of that hole, or anywhere else in the field?"

"No, I'm pretty sure I didn't, I mean mostly I was just looking at you and I honestly wasn't paying attention to anything else— _Shit_ , do you think Michael got out too?"

"I..." Lucifer looks all but terrified now, and he takes another minute to read over it again. "I don't know. There was never supposed to be anyone else in the Cage, so... as far as I can tell, it's very possible." Resignedly, he sets the tablet down and turns to look at Sam directly. "But judging by basic logarithms,  _all_  of the grace present in the Cage would have been dissolved in the process of opening it, not just mine. Which means that if Michael did get out, he could be anywhere on earth and is, more likely than otherwise, just as powerless as I am. So he really isn't what we should be worrying about."

"Then what—"

Sam cuts himself off right there—Lucifer doesn't need to explain what seven-thousand years in the Cage with absolutely no protection would do to a typical human soul.

" _Shit, Adam_."


	4. Is your heart still beating?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is from the song 'Human' by The Killers.

He can't believe he completely forgot about his little brother being stuck down in the Cage, honestly. Though he can't really bring himself to feel terrible at all for not having done anything about it over the past two years—firstly there  _isn't_  anything that could have been done, and even if there had been, Adam's soul is indefinitely mutilated beyond repair.

It's a much less powerful soul in the first place, and it's been down there much longer than Sam ever was. Going off of how Sam turned out once Castiel took Death's wall down, even after spending most of his time in the pit under Lucifer's protection, Adam's got to be infinitely worse.

"I'm fairly sure Michael vented some of his wrath on the kid when he couldn't find us, too," Lucifer mentions with a sigh. He's been hoping that he wouldn't have to think about the Cage anymore. "I haven't caught a glimpse of him in centuries—I can't imagine what his soul must look like now, other than a charred mess. But I can tell you that if he's out there, he's the most dangerous demon you'll ever face. Not just in power, but in chaos. In how twisted he'll be. That place twisted  _me_ , Sam—I was almost too bitter even to listen to you. And I'm—I  _was_ _—_ far more powerful, and far bigger than Adam. He'll be more determined to see the earth roast in flames than anything or anyone else."

Sam can only stare at Lucifer for a moment, as nothing he wants to say feels like worthy enough of a response, and simply saying  _"That's pretty fucking ominous"_  will probably just earn him a glare.

All of this, oddly enough, isn't affecting him quite like he thought it would. Recalling his brief anxiety attack from earlier, though, he figures that what Lucifer told him is just helping very well. Or maybe there's been too much chaos today and he's just desensitized again.

He's staring at one of the symbols painted on the wall when he finally says, "I know what we need to do."

"What?" Lucifer turns to him sharply and with an expression of hope and relief, and Sam twists himself around so that he's sitting cross-legged in front of Lucifer on the bed.

"Nothing. We do absolutely nothing." Sam smiles and unconsciously grabs Lucifer's hands—and as the ex-angel frowns in confusion, Sam scoots closer and the light in his eyes seems to grow brighter. "There isn't anything we can do but keep running. We have no idea where Adam or Michael or Crowley or anyone else is, and we have no way of finding out. What we  _do_  have is the means to stay on the road and to ward away everyone who wants our heads—and each other. That's all we've got, and I don't see any point in stressing out about things we can't change."

"You're not afraid?" Lucifer asks, his tone sounding vaguely like one of admiration. "All of this... it's even worse than we thought."

Sam nearly answers immediately, but then he backtracks. That question actually has him thinking.

And then, "You know what,  _no_ , I'm not. Because right now, right this second, you and I are in absolutely no conceivable danger. And... I went through  _so_  much to get you here—I barely slept, I strained myself as far as I possibly could, I, fuck, I'm pretty sure I threw up a few times from the stress... And before all of that, I might have been able to hold myself together just enough to get rid of the Leviathans, but I was a mess without you—I can't even  _count_  how many bouts of depression I went through. Shit, I—the point I'm getting to is that... the storm I pushed through to get to  _this point_ was not so I could spend my time with you constantly worrying and fearing for our lives. Maybe we have no choice but to live right in the eye of the storm again, but we're together, and that's the only thing that matters. It's just like you said, right?" Sam raises their clasped hands and makes a point of squeezing them. "We can hold hands in this darkness. It doesn't have to be stronger than us."

Hearing his own words come out of Sam's mouth makes Lucifer smile, and subsequently makes him wonder why it's been so difficult for him to smile since he left the Cage. He's happy, really. He's beyond happy to finally be with Sam again, even if it's not in the way he expected. But in this body—with this  _soul_ , really, as he's never been a soul before... he just feels so heavy. And he's vastly unaware of everything because it's all lumped together instead of every last individual molecule standing out to him—how is he even breathing without trying to? Or blinking? How is his heart beating?

It's disorienting, and he's so sure that he can't possibly ever get used to this. He won't. He can't. He doesn't want to. He wants to cling to his angelhood for as long as he can.

But then there's Sam, who had three thousand years to make Lucifer fully believe that humanity as a whole was something worth saving. And it worked, but that doesn't necessarily mean Lucifer is keen on being human himself. Is this what his father always intended for him? Was the apocalypse always just a red herring for his true fate? Or is this a product entirely of free will that ironically happened to work out in a way which would teach Lucifer exactly what his father wanted him to understand?

If someday he meets that asshole again and it turns out that this entire thing was just a roundabout way of teaching him why humans are superior, he's going to be  _so_  angry.

The heat of Sam's hands against his own cold ones seems to warm him up, and he figures that if they can't share a body, then being this close is good enough. Being with Sam at  _all_  is good enough. His newfound mortality makes it difficult for Lucifer to not be afraid of all the danger that surrounds him, but it's like he told Sam earlier, and like Sam just told him. What matters is that they're together.

After staring and smiling at him for a couple seconds, however, Lucifer is suddenly too aware of his heartbeat, and he senses that it's become irregular somehow, at which he frowns deeply and glances downward in concern.

"You okay?" Sam frowns to match his, and follows Lucifer's eyes to try to figure out what's wrong.

"My chest feels weird," he tells him. He doesn't know what else to say.

"Does it hurt?" Sam's mind immediately jumps to the fact that the form Lucifer took has got to be at least 40 years old, and there's a jolt of worry that Nick had heart issues.

"No, it's... just feel it." Lucifer takes Sam's hand and presses it flat against the center of his chest. "My heart feels like it's beating deeper than before. Is that healthy?"

For a moment he waits and just feels Lucifer's heart, but then it hits him all at once and Sam immediately understands. The quickened pace of his heartbeat, and the growing heat in his chest... Jesus, Sam is going to have so much to teach him.

It's hard not to laugh once he realizes. And at that point Lucifer frowns even deeper and looks up at him, only for Sam to tell him, "You're fine. Usually when your chest feels like that it's because of some... intense influx of emotion. In this case I'll take a wild guess and say it's because you're in love, since my chest feels exactly the same way."

"Then why doesn't it feel that way constantly?"

It's a genuine question, but Sam seems to take it as just a really endearing and adorable statement from him because he promptly leans forward so that he's almost on his knees, which is what it takes to cross his arms behind Lucifer's neck and kiss him while they're sitting like this. And Lucifer forfeits his scientific curiosity in favor of kissing Sam and putting one hand up to his heart so he can feel the intensity of what Sam's feeling for him.

Neither of them are sure if it's Lucifer pulling or Sam leaning too far, but gravity pulls them down regardless and it takes a minute to move their legs so they're not in an incredibly awkward position. Sam doesn't even bother kneeling over him—he lies directly on top of Lucifer because this way he can cater to his interest and press their chests directly together. So now their  _hearts_  are beating directly together.

"Stay like this," Lucifer says without thinking when Sam pulls away to see the bliss on his face, and he fears that it sounds like an order the moment it leaves his lips but before he can even think of some sort of apology, Sam smiles and rests his head in the crook of his neck.

His nose is pressing into Lucifer's hair and his chin is right on that muscle attaching Lucifer's neck to his shoulder, and he couldn't be more at peace. In fact, with just the dim light coming from the shitty motel lamps and his vision mostly cluttered by pillows, and with Lucifer's arms around his back and one hand creeping into his hair, he could fall asleep like this. Sam only just now realizes how tired he actually is, and that all that's happened today was in fact just a  _day_  and not a week... Thinking about the last time he slept, just 18 hours ago, is surreal at this point.

Just breathing is easier than it's ever been when Lucifer's breath is at his ears. He feels much more comfortable in his own skin with Lucifer right underneath him. And even his heartbeat seems to slowly pull itself to an even pace to match Lucifer's, just as two lovers walking together will eventually step to the same rhythm.

Sam doesn't remember falling asleep—he just knows that eventually he's waking up to Lucifer gently shaking him and then feeling bad for accidentally falling asleep on him.

"Shit, I'm sorry—was I suffocating you?" he mumbles, pushing himself up and to the side so he can give Lucifer's lungs some room to expand.

But Lucifer doesn't look like he was having any trouble breathing when Sam lies beside him and gets a good look at his face; he just looks concerned somehow. And it takes him a moment to speak, as it sounds an awful lot more pathetic out loud than it did in his head.

"...I'm afraid to sleep, Sam."

Right when it seemed Lucifer was catching onto humanity pretty easily.

Sam is understanding as ever, though, and he immediately sinks down further into the mattress so that his eyes are level with Lucifer's, and only inches away.

"It doesn't hurt," he promises. "It's easy—it's instinct, really."

But the fear in Lucifer's eyes only seems to grow darker, and his chest seems to be involuntarily pulled upward by a breath he forgot to take.

"But that's exactly it... I've never had instinct before. I—I feel like I'm shutting down, and it's becoming more difficult to control my own body, and I know sleep isn't supposed to be dangerous but I still feel as though I'm being pulled toward some kind of emptiness and it's  _terrifying_ , Sam. I've been in a state of constant awareness since the beginning of Creation and I'm... I can't give that up yet."

"You're getting tired," Sam says softly, running one hand through Lucifer's hair and trying to be as comforting as possible. He sighs, wishing Lucifer didn't have to go through this. "I know it's a brand new feeling, but trust me, you'll get used to it, just like everything else. And when you wake up, it'll feel like no time passed at all."

"But... how do I know that I  _will_  wake up? How do humans go to sleep every night, unafraid of what might happen?"

Lucifer poses a rather strong philosophical question that Sam will probably spend more time thinking about once he's well-rested. For now, though, he can only give the simplest of answers.

"Because we have faith, I guess. If we all lived in constant uncertainty, life would be horrible. You just have to trust your body not to fail overnight—and trust  _me_. I won't ever let anything happen to you."

They're both silent for several seconds before Sam breaks it again and decides that  _you know what, let's get the small things out of the way first_. That is to say, they take their shoes, socks, and pants off. And then he makes a point of actually getting under the blankets (which is a formality he almost never did while on the road with Dean—it just always felt too much like settling down) and pulling Lucifer with him.

"I won't let go of you," Sam assures him quietly, arms around the man curled up at his side. There's a head on his chest, a leg slotted between his, and a hand in his hair. "If you want, I'll stay up and talk until you get too tired to stay awake."

"Please," is all he says in response, still afraid of the darkness behind his eyelids and of the unknown. But after Sam asks what he wants him to talk about, there's a moment of consideration and then—"Can you sing?"

The empty guffaw in his chest is enough to make Lucifer's head move, and then have him looking up to see Sam's half-grin. Honestly, his voice is even worse than Dean's, and that's absolutely shameful considering he's the vessel for the angel of music himself.

"I can try."

* * *

 

This world is cold and dark. Humanity is long forgotten over millennia of torment, but memories of his previous life are vivid and sharp. Adam remembers being eaten by a ghoul, and he remembers his brief time in Heaven, and he even remembers his even shorter time with the Winchesters and subsequently harboring an angel beneath his skin.

What he does not remember is what it _felt_  like to be human, to be unaware of most things and to be happy. He remembers that life as though he was always what he is now. He remembers anger and pain and suffering—that is all he knows.

Adam is dust. He is magmatic particles burning through everything they touch, igniting the air with pure evil. He is the embodiment of all the torture he has been through. He is what a soul becomes when it spends so long where it was never meant to be.

Adam is  _need_. Need for vengeance, and for chaos. There is a single purpose driving him and it is to destroy—but especially the Winchesters.  _They_  are the reason he has become such a monster; they are the reason for all his suffering.

Adam is not a demon. He doesn't even really know exactly what a demon is. The time he spent being shredded apart, he never learned about demon hierarchy or the politics of Hell. He was never given instructions or a chance to do any torturing himself or... any information at all, really. He has no idea what he is other than  _powerful_.

Angels wouldn't even know what to tell you. There is no word for this, as it has never happened before. It was never meant to happen. God isn't here to provide answers, so the most accurate term for now, if anyone were to be aware of the impurity that has just been unleashed upon the world, would be 'an abomination.'

There is, however, vague instinct as to what he is capable of. Adam is not merely floating blindly through space, waiting for a chance. The twisted consciousness that extends however far this smoky form holds has somewhat of a plan.

Freak storms hit wherever he passes over. Meteorologists invent a cold front to keep religious nuts from insisting another apocalypse. The first time Adam touches down and attempts to take a vessel, they spontaneously combust and he is forced to leave immediately and find someone else to possess.

It's their souls that decide how well they can contain him, he discovers after a few tries. Something about the human soul is just so horrifically incompatible with—well, whatever he is, that when they touch, the connection ignites. There is no control, only destruction. Some hold him for longer than others—the longest is two minutes. Two minutes, and then he's flying straight out of there again, away from the screams of onlookers and onto another possible vessel.

Eventually, it occurs to him: why not take a body that has already been vacated of a soul?

Approximately twenty minutes later in a Nevada hospital, several doctors are startled to see the body of a young man presumed dead walking out the front doors, and a couple of them report seeing him with pure white eyes.

Adam finds it quite refreshing, finally having a solid form again.

_I'm back in business._

* * *

 

As much as Dean always told him that he sounds like a dying animal,  _All These Things That I've Done_  and other Killers songs as performed by Sam's voice seems to have put Lucifer to sleep just fine. He wakes up to a hand running gently up and down his back and guesses that Sam has been awake for a while.

"How was your first night's rest?" he asks when Lucifer pushes himself up and rubs vigorously at his eyes.

"For some time I believed I was in the Cage again," he says simply. He feels much less calm than he sounds, though. "Except it was nothing like the Cage, really. But somehow I was still aware of where I was..."

Sam grimaces. "I should have guessed you'd have nightmares. They can be horrible, I know, but—"

"But I'll get used to it?" Lucifer finishes, giving him a somewhat tired look. Sam doesn't know what to say other than—

"I'm sorry."

Forgiveness seems to come quickly because Lucifer readily changes his expression as well as the subject.

"I'm still tired."

"Give it a few minutes. Then again it might be because you slept too long—it's noon. I'm surprised you didn't wake up before I did, really."

Now, Lucifer has to admit that feeling tired isn't so bad anymore. The force that pulls his head back down to Sam's chest isn't a heavy sense of emptiness, but rather a desire for comfort and peace. And he stays like that for a few minutes before Sam begins sitting up underneath him and saying that they can't lie in bed all day, there's things to do.

Firstly, morning kisses. Which Lucifer learns he likes the most out of all other kisses so far because they're warm and lazy and afterward he gets to just lean his forehead against Sam's and slowly come to terms with the fact that he has to be productive.

Once his mind truly wakes up, though, the prospect of being busy all day motivates him and reminds him that he  _wants_  to be awake and as aware of his surroundings as possible. Along with, of course, the sudden reminder (via all the symbols in his peripheral vision) of all the danger that follows them and how staying in a motel for too long is a bad idea. He can't believe he managed to forget about that at all, really, but it occurs to him that while being human means being vastly unaware of everything, perhaps the inability to hold onto too much knowledge at any given time can be a comfort.

The second thing on the agenda is a shower. Neither of them are all that dirty, but Sam insists that his long hair needs to be washed daily and that showers naturally make people feel better. Lucifer's slightly confused, though, when Sam strips completely naked, opens the bathroom door, and tells him to come on.

"Do couples normally shower together?" From the time he spent on earth before, he vaguely remembers getting the impression that bathing is generally an individual act.

"Oh. Uh—" Sam is a bit flustered now, and oddly aware of his own nakedness. "Some do, yeah. I just figured... but you can shower alone if you want to—"

"I need you to show me how to use a shower before I ever shower alone, anyway," Lucifer cuts him off, promptly shirking his boxer-briefs and tossing his shirt across the room. Both of them are pretty sure he wouldn't necessarily need that much assistance to learn, but it alleviates the awkwardness and makes it easier to shut the bathroom door behind them.

"For future reference," he tells him once the water is running down their backs, "if you ever do shower without me, always set it to warm. Cold showers are only good for very specific situations, and you'll know when you're in one."

Lucifer leans against the wall and watches as Sam shampoos and conditions his hair, and then shampoos his own under Sam's instruction.

"Do I not use conditioner too?"

"Nah, conditioner's only for people with long hair."

"Why?"

"I... have no idea. It just is."

Sam tells him it's important to keep his dick clean, and this time Lucifer doesn't have to ask why. Both of them have been thinking about it since the moment they stepped in the shower, honestly—it just doesn't seem like the right time.

_He's only been back a day and we really need to get on the road. The next motel, for sure._

When they get out and dry off and start getting dressed, Sam glances around the room and notices the unopened boxes of food and stares for a moment until it fully occurs to him what that means.

"Did you not eat anything last night?"

Lucifer pulls his shirt on and looks up innocently. "No."

"Aren't you hungry?"

"Well, I've never felt hunger so I can't say for sure, but my abdomen has been hurting if that means anything."

Sam frowns and sighs like an exasperated parent. "You need to eat, Lucifer. You'll die if you don't."

"I thought the human body could survive for at least forty days without food?"

_Jesus Christ._

"You'd still need to drink water, at least," he says, grabbing the box of sugar cookies and walking over to adjust Lucifer's collar. It's quite unnecessary, but it's the sort of gesture Sam's always wanted to be able to do. "And maybe you won't die right away, but you need food if you want to have any energy."

As Sam leans forward to smack a kiss on his lips, Lucifer grimaces. He doesn't  _want_  to need food to live. And part of him has just enough pride to believe that he'll be the  _one_  human who doesn't require any sort of fuel, but—

"Just try not to think of it as something you need—eat food for the pleasure, because you like the taste," Sam advises. "We'll stop for lunch so I can make sure that you get  _something_  in your system."

It's probably going to be the only way Lucifer will be willing to eat for a while. He hopes he doesn't get him hooked on diner food, though.

* * *

 

Sam probably should have figured that taking Lucifer into a farmer's market would get him some weird looks. He has to explain Lucifer's perplexed expression at everything they buy with "He's, uh, never had fruit before." Which is completely true, but still.

It has to be some kind of biblical symmetry that the first thing Lucifer ever bites into is an apple, and subsequently some  _huge_  fucking irony that he ends up not liking it.

"How can you not like it, though?" Sam wonders with an odd sort of frown, rolling the bitten fruit around in his hand as Lucifer works his tongue at his teeth to get all the bits of apple out.

"I just don't. It leaves a weird feeling in my mouth."

"No, I mean... well, babies don't have preferences because they've never eaten anything before. So whatever you feed them when they first start eating, they generally grow up to like."

Lucifer raises one eyebrow. "Are you saying I'm a baby? I'm millions of years old, Sa—"

Sam shoots him a glare. "You know what I mean."

Lucifer then gives him a shit-eating grin, so he figures at least he's making jokes again.

And then he shrugs. "The taste is too dull for me, I guess."

With all the other fruit they try out, only a few of them make the cut. At first Sam figures that Lucifer's just stubborn and that he's refusing to enjoy any kind of food, but he ends up  _very_  much liking strawberries, lemons (Sam let him peel it and eat it like an orange as a joke but he actually liked it enough to eat it all and even swallowed the fucking seeds), and pomegranates. Sam sits down with Lucifer on a bench so they can cut one open and eat it ("Yes, you're actually supposed to eat the seeds on this one."), and he decides that he likes it because, as he puts it,  _they taste like sin_.

Later, when they leave with a bag full of fruit, Lucifer picks out his new wardrobe and it turns out to be strikingly similar to Sam's.

"You don't have to dress exactly like me if you don't want to, you know," he assures him when he starts picking out all the plaid in his size.

"How else  _would_  I dress?"

Sam supposes that Lucifer really wouldn't have any sort of fashion preference other than what  _he_  wears... and it's not like there's much variety in the grown men's section, anyway.

"...At least get a few t-shirts for when it gets warm. And we need to figure out your pants size because Dean's old pants are a little too short."  _And tight,_  he thinks, but that's not exactly a problem.

The last thing to do is get Lucifer inked up. In retrospect, that probably should have been done first, but then Sam figures that Lucifer shouldn't be out doing things right after essentially getting voluntary scars.

They show the first parlor they find the anti-possession symbol on Sam's chest and have their best artist do the same on Lucifer. He then draws out the Enochian sigils that will conceal him from the watch of any angels who might track them, and the tattoo artist is wary of giving him two tattoos in one go, but he insists that he can handle it.

And he really can. Millions of years in the Cage have given him quite the pain threshold.

Plus, they have enough money to get whatever they want.

Sam gets the warding sigils as well, since he's fairly sure the ones carved into his ribs were washed away during one of the various times he's died and then come back to life.

And then it's off to a new motel—in the next state over, just in case—to cover with wards and shack down in for the night, leaving another long (though significantly shorter) day behind them.

Maybe there's a local diner that will make a nice spot for a dinner date, too.

* * *

 

"We seem to have lost track of them completely, Naomi."

She figured it wouldn't be long before they implemented permanent warding sigils. Though perhaps not quite this soon. Naomi sighs, unsurprised, and looks up at the angel reporting to her.

"Did any new information come to light before then?" she asks pleasantly, folding her hands on the desk.

"No—they haven't come in contact with any demons other than the one they killed, or anyone else for that matter. But it's barely been twenty-four hours since the Cage opened, so I would hardly call that enough time to gauge the level of danger—"

"Calm down, Ion," Naomi tells him, sitting up straighter. "Lucifer is human. And from what security cameras have shown us, Sam Winchester's reasons for bringing him back are rather... personal."

Rather than calming down as ordered, however, Ion steps closer and frowns, controlling his frustration as much as possible without hiding it altogether. "Are you not concerned, Naomi? Our job is to re-wire rebellious angels, and Lucifer is the  _poster-child_  of disobedience—"

Naomi stands up, and that is enough to shut him up.

"Our  _job_  is to protect Heaven and Earth," she reminds him, her voice cut and clear and momentarily fear-inducing. "Lucifer and Sam pose no immediate threat. Put your personal feelings over something that happened ages ago aside and understand that Lucifer's imprisonment mainly served the purpose of preventing him from doing any more damage. I should know—I helped design it. Without his grace... we have no reason to treat him as an enemy."

Part of Ion wants to agree that perhaps Lucifer really has done his time. And part of him—the part that tells him to quit tensing up—blames his Fall for their father's absence.

"...We are also an intelligence division," he says when he feels it is his place to do so. "And—"

"In due time, Ion." She knows what he wants. It's what they all want. "When we find him, whether we do so in this life or we have to wait until he dies and returns to Heaven, I will debrief him and see what he may know about why and where God left. But for now that is not the main concern. Every angel in our division is to work on protecting the Angel Tablet—do not waste our resources on finding Lucifer, and do not allow the news of his escape from the Cage to reach the rest of Heaven."

Almost all of the other factions of Heaven are currently at war with each other, so she doubts they'll have time to notice, but if it gets out that Lucifer got topside under her watch... not only will there be chaos, but that would  _not_  be good for her campaign.

Honestly, she doubts Lucifer will know anything about God. He may have been cast down right before God abandoned Heaven, and he may be the last archangel alive, but that doesn't mean he's in the loop when no one else has ever been. But if she gets a hold of both him  _and_  the Angel Tablet... the rest of the angels will be  _begging_  her to step up to the plate and rule Heaven, and she will have the power to do so.

Which is why she needs to find him herself. Can't have any rogue angels trying for revenge and destroying Lucifer's soul before she has a chance to get information from him.


	5. From the long arm of the law

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is from the song 'Renegade' by Styx.

Sam dreams that he is falling, nothing but darkness around him except the circle of light far above him which he jumped through. It grows smaller and smaller until it is a speck and then disappears, but he doesn't stop falling. Soon his dangling limbs reach for something in the darkness and grab onto whatever they can—and though logically it can only be Michael's neck that his arms wrap themselves around, for he is the only other physical body here, he knows it's Lucifer. They hold each other as they fall, and it's their bond that somehow cushions the landing.

He's had that same dream many times before, but this is the first time Sam's woken up with Lucifer actually in his arms—the same way he's always dreamt he was holding him, even. For a moment he fears that he's still dreaming, that he was always dreaming and that Lucifer never left the Cage, but then the light shining through the blinds seems to shift and hit Lucifer's closed eyelids, thus waking him up.

There's too much detail for this to be a dream; Sam is  _definitely_  awake.

"It's so odd that light would annoy me now," Lucifer grumbles as he turns his head and shoves his face back into Sam's chest. "What evolutionary benefit even  _is_  there in making human eyes so sensitive to light?"

Still too tired to develop thoughts efficiently, Sam remains silent and waits for his brain to pick up speed. And then he makes a face. "There isn't one," he says surely, though he doesn't necessarily remember everything he learned from his time in college. "We're just weak, honestly."

That doesn't exactly make Lucifer feel any better, but neither of them follow up on that. Instead, Sam pulls him up for a good-morning kiss and subsequently feels something hard against his hip bone.

Lucifer seems to unconsciously cant his hips forward after feeling the slightest bit of friction and then suppress a low groan in his throat, after which Sam pulls back and Lucifer immediately apologizes.

"I didn't mean to—it was just... like that when I woke up."

Sam figures he can wait until later to explain why morningwood happens (Lucifer will be more motivated to drink water, he's sure, especially before bed), but for now he silences his worry with a kiss and works a hand in between their closely pressed bodies so he can lazily palm Lucifer's erection.

"Want me to take care of that for you?" he mutters into his lips—

—And Lucifer, who may be one of the oldest beings in Creation but never once had any interest nor occasion for real intercourse—who is experiencing bodily arousal for the first time ever, is pressing himself hard against Sam's hand and hesitantly answering  _yes_.

"You sure?" He feels the need to ask. Lucifer always valued his consent more than anything, so he deserves to be granted the same respect. Sam even pulls his hand away to make sure he can give an answer while thinking coherently.

Lucifer is by no means afraid of this; he just isn't fully aware of what's in store. But he has undying trust in Sam, and what he's experienced so far felt  _great_ , so he nods feverishly and kisses him again, and again and again until Sam takes it as an absolute  _yes_  and flips them over so that Lucifer is lying on his back.

And then Sam's kissing him deeper for a few seconds before pulling away, looking him straight in the eyes, and telling him, "I am going to make you  _love_  being human."

He then proceeds to really,  _really_  live up to his promise—as Sam slides down and tugs his underwear off and just  _goes to town_ , Lucifer can't help but think that perhaps this is a good reason for why humans have always been so sex-obsessed.

" _Sam_ " is the only sound rolling off of his lips because he doesn't know what else to say. There isn't anything else he  _wants_  to say, either, because it's Sam's mouth around his cock and Sam's hands holding his hips down and Sam's hair that he's grasping—it sounds like a prayer, really. It sounds more worshipful than anything he ever said to God himself and it feels more rapturous than how he first felt coming out of the Cage.

Inexperienced in this sort of thing as he is, Lucifer comes after not very long at all, but Sam expected as much so he's prepared to swallow it all down quickly. Afterwards, he crawls back up the bed with an extremely satisfied smile and kisses the side of Lucifer's mouth before settling beside him and resting one hand on his heaving chest.

It's been a while since he's done that, and knowing what an effect he had on the other person, even aside from the fact that it's Lucifer, is one of the best parts.

Once he comes down from the post-orgasm high, he presses his knee forward to feel that Sam has an erection as well, and immediately comes to the decision:

"I want to do that to you. Can I?"

For the first time in a while, Sam is honest-to-god flustered. He knows that Lucifer can't possibly have ever done this before, so his enthusiasm stems only from how good it felt and how much he must want Sam to feel the same thing.

"I—yeah. If you really want to," he tells him, and that's enough for Lucifer to push himself to his knees and then flip Sam onto his back so he can get to the end of the bed and pull his boxers down.

There's a moment of slight hesitation before he just goes straight for Sam's cock and licks from base to tip like he remembers Sam doing—and then engulfing the head in his mouth and going as deep as he can. It's harder than it looks, though, and he doesn't get that far before he gags and pulls off.

"How did you get the whole thing in your mouth?" Lucifer asks, frowning and distinctly remembering that he hit the back of Sam's throat several times.

"It's... you have a gag reflex," Sam explains, trying not to grin or laugh. "And it takes a lot of practice, but you kind of just have to push through it and try to relax your throat. You don't have to do that now, though, you can just use your hand— _shit_ _—_ "

But Lucifer's determined, and before Sam can finish he's got his mouth around his cock again and he's pushing far past his limit, in spite of the discomfort, until his lips are around the base and Sam is hissing a sharp " _fuck_ " and moving a hand to Lucifer's hair. He pulls up again and then bobs back down, trying to remember what Sam did and copy it as well as he can.

It's quite literally the sloppiest and most inexperienced blowjob Sam has ever gotten, but Lucifer's trying his hardest and aside from being a fast learner (thanks to Sam's occasional advice) he is a fucking  _trooper_. Maybe it's because he doesn't know enough about human life to be averse to something like this, but it's impressive regardless.

Sam takes significantly longer to come, though when he does, he forgets to warn Lucifer and it takes him a bit by surprise. At least he manages to keep it all inside his mouth and then swallow without complaint—at which Sam remembers how tightly he's been gripping Lucifer's hair and stops so he doesn't pull any of it out.

Instead of waiting for Lucifer to crawl up, Sam simply pulls him back up so he can forfeit the breath his lungs are trying to regain and kiss him as a silent sort of  _that was great, that was_ really _fucking great, especially for your first time_.

Mentally, Lucifer adds  _orgasms_  to his list of the perks of being human.

* * *

 

With the world's Biggest Bads at their tail, staying in one place for longer than a day is both impossible and extraordinarily stupid. Wherever there's the slightest signs of demon activity, they have to leave immediately. The motels they choose are the most unsuspecting they can find, and Lucifer is slowly learning how to pick them out with Sam.

Lucifer's learning a lot of things. It's awkward and confusing and emotionally trying, and so much of his time is spent pressed into Sam with those bulky arms wrapped around him because that's the only way he can feel truly comfortable in this form. No matter how much fate has clearly changed, he knows where he belongs and it's  _behind Sam's ribs_. And it's not as though Sam argues with that—but he still doesn't quite  _feel_  what Lucifer is going through.

He grows to be less and less terrified of sleeping. At the very least it still feels uncomfortable and there's still an odd sort of uneasiness, but that can be attributed to the nightmares he's likely to have after he nods off. He finds it quite surprising that bad dreams come even when he's in the safety of Sam's grasp, but then he supposes that that sort of trauma doesn't just  _go away_.

Food is difficult to get used to, as Sam keeps telling him that he can't just eat one thing or another and that he needs at least a  _little_  bit of diversity to be healthy, but he only likes a few different foods. Sam has to refrain from giving him the look parents give to their picky children, and he tells him that if he keeps trying new things, he'll have a couple things from each food group that he won't have a fuss over and it'll be easier for the both of them.

Possibly the worst thing about being a human is defecating, he discovers. It's disgusting and far too time-consuming, and for a full day Lucifer decides that eating isn't worth something like that. However, his growing curiosity over how the whole plumbing system works and how one roll can possibly hold  _that_  much toilet paper leads him to realizing that "Humans are much more inventive than I gave them credit for" (cue a glare from Sam) and figuring that at least it does generally bring a relieving sensation.

Sam wants to introduce Lucifer to literature, but their time is limited so he sticks to movies and reality tv for now. Whatever's on the motel televisions, Sam will put on mostly to hear all of Lucifer's questions and commentary, but also to get him used to the modern world.

"So it's common for parents to put their daughters in beauty competitions? Not much has changed from the Old Days, then."

"Why are people entertained by 16 year-old girls having children?—Or is it that they're just entertained by lower-class families?"

"There's an entire channel just for  _food_?"

On one hand, they're lucky that they've gone this long without finding anymore demons or anything else. But on the other, they haven't spent much time at all out in the open—especially not Lucifer. They both figure it's safest for him to be generally hidden from the public eye where he could be recognized, as both of them would have much more of a price on their heads the moment the word gets out that he's returned.

Sam feels weird keeping Lucifer essentially locked away, as it seems now that he went to all that trouble to get him topside just to get a secret fallen angel boyfriend to hide from the world and keep for himself. While that is technically  _exactly_  what he did, there was never this much hiding planned. If he could, honestly, he wouldn't hide Lucifer at all. He'd show him off to the world who has no idea what Sam has done for them all and he would make sure everyone could see the piece of Heaven he carries around with him. That was the whole epiphany after Dean's death, wasn't it? A world with no hiding.

He supposes that he really isn't hiding, though. Not in the way that he was before.

After days of driving around, Sam figures that it should be safe to head back in the direction of Rufus's cabin. He thinks back to when his life was freshly void of Dean and Cas and when he was not yet lonely enough to do anything other than enjoy his freedom—when he lived at the cabin and dreamt about making it a home for him and Lucifer, far away from everyone else. Maybe that's still possible... They could buy enough food and supplies to last a few months and stay in the cabin until it's time to restock. Yeah, that's definitely possible.

It would be different than staying in a motel. There'd be no one to bother them out there, no people at all—and no security cameras. It's completely separate from society but somehow still connected enough to stay in the loop, and with all the right wards... it's perfect.

"Ready to take a break from life on the road?" he turns to Lucifer and asks once he's made up his mind.

"Meaning?"

After he explains, Lucifer is more than eager.

It's several hours of driving, buying things in bulk from Costco, and listening to Sam's CDs on repeat until they're miles deep into Montana forest and parked in front of a familiar old cabin.

Something feels off the moment they step out of the impala, though—but not quite enough to put any real fear in him. As he's always been, Sam is on his guard, and he tells Lucifer not to grab any of the supplies just yet—"Just need to make sure," he mutters, handing him a knife.

It's... empty, as far as he can tell, when he first steps onto the wood floor and tentatively turns the light on.

And  _definitely_  cleaner than he left it.

_Fuck._

Right as he turns around, Lucifer is flying from the spot where he was standing and slamming into the wall opposite from the doorway, and Sam's mind flips like a switch. He automatically knows this is a demon, so it's a reflex motion that his hand darts inside his jacket to grab the demon knife and with which he charges forward in an attempt to kill the attacker—

But then he's grabbed as well, and Sam's large frame knocks them both to the ground and forces him to wrestle for the blade. The demon nicks his side in an attempt to knock it away, but as always, Sam's strength wins over and he manages to shove the knife into the demon's neck. His head then whips over to Lucifer, who is half-slumped on the floor and attempting to push himself up, and what he presumes to be a second demon (of course there's two, there's  _always_  two) approaching him.

The demon doesn't attempt to kill him immediately, but rather stares in a sort of awe-like confusion, not sure whether to cower or capture or kill.

"You're..."

Before he can say very much to his fallen creator, however, the demon is met with Ruby's knife through his chest by Sam, who managed to scramble to his feet and cross the room while it was distracted.

The cabin is fairly silent in the next few moments but for the sound of a second body hitting the floor, so they can safely assume that there are no more. That doesn't really alleviate the wariness whatsoever—though Sam is mostly just very disappointed. He pulls Lucifer to a standing position and looks at him very apologetically to say that "We can't stay, we... have to leave."

Of course it's frustrating, but Lucifer isn't necessarily upset that the cabin is a bust—not nearly as upset as Sam is that he couldn't do this for him. He can tell that Sam saw this as somewhat of a gift, and he's absolutely overwhelmed with affection when Sam simply grimaces and hugs him around the shoulders. When he makes to hug him back, though, Lucifer's hand meets something wet and he steps back at once to show him that he's bleeding.

"Shit—yeah, he got me. I'm gonna need to stitch that up later. But we need to leave. Like,  _right now_. Those were almost definitely Crowley's demons and for all we know their deaths could have alerted him."

It's astonishing to Lucifer how Sam can pull him along and get in the car and drive perfectly fine and simply ignore the gash in his side. Alternatively, it physically pains him to see Sam split open, even when he insists that  _it's jagged but it's a shallow cut, don't worry, babe,_  even when he hears that term of endearment for the first time and feels a rush of affection without knowing why. He's worried the whole ride over to the next motel no matter what Sam says, and especially when they stop at a gas station to check and double-check the impala and their clothes for any kind of tracking coin that might have been stashed by Crowley's demons somehow.

Only after the third check is Sam satisfied that they're not being magically tracked and that those demons were just idiots—and that either Crowley's an idiot for trusting them or he just honestly did  _not_  expect Sam to go back to the cabin. Which, in retrospect, would make him the idiot. He tries not to dwell on it.

* * *

 

"Here—just stitch through there, and then go across, and then keep doing the same thing until you get to the end, then tie it off."

Sam figures that Lucifer ought to learn how to treat wounds and stitch them up since that's a reality of his life now, and because hospitals aren't an option unless one of them is literally dying. He does a good job of attending to Sam's, though he's so focused and determined that it's actually worrying.

"Is your back okay?" Sam asks when Lucifer finishes the stitches, thinking that maybe that's it. "Because we still have pain meds if you need them."

"It's a little sore, but I'm fine," he insists. He's still frowning at Sam's side, though, and dabbing to clean up all the dried blood. It's endearing to see Lucifer so worried for his well-being, but the future's only going to get worse and Sam needs to make sure that he can handle bigger injuries.

Reaching out, he runs a hand through Lucifer's hair until he looks up.

"You know it's just a cut, right? I've been a hunter my whole life, Lucifer. Meaning I've dealt with a lot worse and come out fine."

That doesn't seem to do a great job of convincing him, but at least he's compelled to actually say something, now.

"It's just occurred to me how fragile humans are," he sighs. "And that no matter how different I see you from the rest, you still are human, and... if you die, I can't save you. If I had been able to leave the Cage and join you the way I was supposed to, or at least with my powers—"

"You know that's not anyone's fault," Sam tries to say convincingly, but Lucifer's expression doesn't change.

"What if you die, though? What if  _I_  die? What do we do then?"

Oddly enough, Sam doesn't have to think very much to have a solid answer come to mind. He simply pulls his shirt back on to cover up the scar so Lucifer can't look at it anymore and turns to him, one edge of his lips pulled upward in a sort of smirk.

"I think you're underestimating what it means to be a Winchester, honestly." That makes Lucifer's brow and shoulders relax, as he's now more curious than distressed. "Do you know how many times I've died and come back? And—how many times, against all odds, I've survived? How many times I've helped save the world? A while ago I'd have loved to say that that was all over and that I could have a normal life again, but now I can pretty much guarantee you that neither of us are dying for good until it's our time. We're meant to stay together until the end, I'm sure of it."

The promise isn't just for comfort, but also because Sam truly believes it. There's an ironic sort of destiny surrounding him and Lucifer and that destiny is  _free will_. If God is still out there and still a part of this game, whatever he has planned for them isn't going to be unfair anymore. That much, Sam is somehow sure of just as he is sure that the sun will rise tomorrow.

Lucifer has trouble believing that he would simply come back—who would provide that kind of miracle? An angel? God? He doubts his fate would be granted that kind of leeway from anyone in Heaven. But if Sam believes it, then he also can't help but trust him.

Mostly, he gets one thing from that little speech:

"Does this mean I'm a Winchester now?"

Come to think of it, Lucifer  _is_  here against all odds. He's here in spite of fate, in spite of  _God_ -in essence, he even died and came back.

"I guess it does," he grins. And how great would it be, he thinks, if they could get married and Lucifer could legally adopt that surname... but that's impossible and a bad idea considering their situation. As far as the government is concerned, Sam Winchester is dead and Lucifer doesn't even exist.

But what they have now, he thinks, is better than marriage, and Lucifer is undoubtedly a Winchester in spirit.

* * *

 

Those idiot demons never knew it, but Crowley's been having other demons check up on them twice a day to see whether or not they're still there. When one finally returns to Crowley with news that the demons at the cabin are dead and that no one else is nearby, he doesn't hesitate to send a hoard of more footsoldiers out to that area because he knows Sam can't have gone far.

"How were they killed?" he demands to know, and the demon seems confused at the question for a moment.

"With the, ah—the Kurdish demon-killing knife. Sir." Or at least she assumes that was it. There were single wounds on each of them and she's vaguely aware from Crowley's ramblings that the knife has been in the Winchesters' possession for a while.

_Rules out a possible relapse into Sam's old demon blood-addiction, then._

_Or maybe not?_

Crowley decides to go check the scene himself.

From what he can tell, each demon was stabbed once. The smell of fear is absent from their corpses, so it was quick. There's no sign of torture or even very much of a struggle before they were destroyed, either—hell, one of them was clearly distracted and stabbed from behind.

"So Moose didn't even  _try_  to get information from them...," he mutters to himself, narrowing his eyes at the various bits of wreckage, finding that odd. Especially seeing as he clearly wasn't alone in this fight  _and_  had the knife for leverage.

But then what was Sam  _doing_  here? Trying to retrieve some useful spell ingredients, is his best guess. The various old jars stacked in the basement don't give Crowley much of a clue, though.

Frustrated, he returns to the warehouse where Meg is chained up. His footsteps on the cold floor trigger a quiet rattling of metal that sound distinctly like fear. Crowley can sense her thoughts— _shit, what do they want now._

Most of Meg's torture in the past week has been regarding the Angel Tablet with only the occasional dip back into  _What is Sam doing_ , as the former is more of a significant issue and has been hinted on much less. And right now, as Meg sees that it's not just any old demon coming to give her the daily round of questions, she knows it's likely the latter. There's a purpose here, and she's worried that Sam has been caught somehow.

"A couple dead birdies told me that if Sam _is_  trying to find a way to kill me," he drawls out, moving over to the rack to pick out the tool he feels like using today, "he's doing a piss-poor job at it." When he finds his favorite drill, he hums out a short noise of approval and steps back over to Meg, who's covered in sweat and blood (and a little bit of piss). "He went back to the cabin today. Killed two demons with the knife and then left. If you tell me why,"—he pointedly turns the drill on, and a metallic whirring noise fills the warehouse—"I won't put this in your skull."

His smile makes Meg's insides curdle—not in fear but in disgust. She wants him dead so badly that it's almost confusing that he won't just evaporate out of her sheer willpower. God, she wishes that Sam actually  _was_  trying to find a way to kill the bastard.

Though mostly she wishes that he wasn't such a fucking idiot, and that she didn't have to be so worried about him.

* * *

 

He doesn't know what, but  _something_  takes him back to Windom, Minnesota. It's not any remaining drop of humanity left in him, that's for sure—he's a cloud of personified agony piloting a dead schoolteacher, for fuck's sake. But then he realizes: it's his oldest memories. It's familiarity, especially in this cafe that he always used to eat at. It's the subconscious hope that being here will give him some kind of hint as to where he should start looking.

Adam vaguely remembers that his favorite booth in this cafe was always the one farthest from the door, but now he sits at the bar with no regard for it. The waitress pouring his coffee right now is a woman he recognizes to be his highschool sweetheart. Maybe the old Adam looked at her with a sort of fondness or attraction, but now he looks at her and all he wants to do is tear her to shreds. Maybe he'll do that later, follow her home and mangle her up until he finally sees her as beautiful again.

He also isn't quite sure why he's drinking coffee, seeing as he has no need for sustenance and he never even liked it when he was human. It's good, though; it's hot. Searing hot, just enough that he can actually feel it.

Next to him, several young men are facing the small television that's studded to the wall in the corner of the room. He vaguely registers the news story that's blaring over the rain outside (which Adam is fairly sure his presence is causing) and the commentary that they're making.

" _Two men caught on security camera footage beating and stabbing a man to death outside a Motel 6 off I-94 have been verified by police and other witnesses as the same alleged perpetrators involved in two other murders in separate states. Little information has been released to the public, other than that these men are believed to be extremely dangerous."_

"Fuckin' sickos," one of the men seems to think is an original thought worth voicing.

"Hey, doesn't the tall one in the picture look like one of the crazy brothers who went on that cross-country killing spree a while ago?" another one adds.

"Oh yeah, um—Sam and Dean Winchester," chimes in a third one. Adam's head turns of its own accord. "Yeah, he does kind of look like one of them. I forget which is which. Fuck, if they weren't dead I'd say it  _was_  one of them."

"Who?" the first guy asks, frowning.

"Dude, how the fuck do you not know about them?"

"Well excuse me for not being up to date on serial killers."

"You could at least watch the news—"

"Did you say  _Winchester_?" Adam interrupts them, leaning over with an intensely focused expression. They look unsettled, but then nod after a moment.

_This is it._

He has no regard for the group of confused men as he leaves his seat at the other end of the bar, headed for the remote.

"Can you change the station?" a teenager calls out when she notices him. "The news is kind of bumming me out."

With a glance over his shoulder at the girl, her neck is instantaneously snapped in half. She slumps dead in her seat, her phone still in her hand, and the rest of the cafe freezes in fear while Adam calmly searches for the button to turn up the volume and finds that he can even rewind the news story. Modern technology sure is fucking convenient.

He gets back to " _two other murders in separate states_ " and pauses—and there it is. Sam, the one who said the big yes to Lucifer and pulled him into the Cage (and then got to fucking  _leave_  without him)... that's definitely him. The other man isn't Dean, but this is amazing regardless.

Turning to the rest of the still-horrified people in the cafe, Adam puts on his biggest smile and allows his eyes to turn solid white, eliciting a few muffled screams and people motioning the sign of the cross or muttering prayers.

"Good news, everybody. I'm celebrating tonight!"

* * *

 

Lucifer's the one who fumbles with the remote to turn the motel TV off when the news story about them ends. The fact that their faces are now all over international news stations is disconcerting enough, but what worries him more is Sam's apparent  _lack_  of worry.

"Trust me, the American law enforcement is  _nothing_  compared to what might have been coming for us if that demon had escaped and gotten to Crowley," Sam assures him when he voices his concern. "You didn't even show up well enough in the footage to be recognizable, so I would call us pretty damn lucky, actually."

It's not so much a miracle as it is that Sam is just  _too_  recognizable. You'd think that at this point he'd be cutting and dying his hair or maybe changing up his style or changing up the  _car_ , maybe—but in lieu of safety, he feels the need to maintain his brand recognition. Just the idea of cutting his hair more than an inch above his shoulders feels disastrous.

So people see his height and the hair and the plaid and the shoulder-to-hip ratio and they can tell Sam from anywhere. Police could probably pick him out from a black and white 200 by 200 pixel photo, and that honestly does not matter to him as much as it does that he doesn't give up his signature look.

It occurs to him briefly that that's probably how serial killers—the ones who show off, who  _want_  to be caught—think. And then it occurs to him that, considering his lifestyle since Jess's death, he's one technicality away from  _being_  a serial killer. The only difference is that most of the victims objectively deserved it.

In some sick way, Sam likes the idea of being publicly labeled a serial killer again. Because this time it's actually  _him_  committing the "murders" that he's wanted for, and, of course, because he's got Lucifer with him now. He definitely intended Lucifer's return to be followed by an action-free, normal, domestic life... but maybe under different circumstances, in a different life where Lucifer wasn't  _the Devil_ , their names could have been plastered across the top of FBI's Most Wanted.

Years ago, even before Dean got him back into hunting, he probably never would have been thinking this way. He  _definitely_  never let himself think this way when the apocalypse was upon them and he was denying himself constantly. But now he feels that he is the man he's always been building up to, and this is the way the new and improved Sam thinks.

The fantasy is fleeting, but it leaves Sam curious. So once Lucifer is convinced that there's nothing to worry about, Sam rolls over to lie on his side and rests one hand on his leg to get his attention.

"You killed a lot of people when you were trying to start the apocalypse. Do you ever want to do that again? I mean—not in the sense that you're bitter about humanity as a whole. But individual people, human or demon or whatever else. Do you ever just want to... kill people?"

Lucifer, as the only person in the world who truly knows how Sam feels about this sort of thing, is utterly unfazed by the question.

"Since I lost my grace and stepped back into this world... constantly. Other than you, I want to kill every person I come across," he answers calmly, unsure why he hasn't mentioned this to Sam yet. "But the urge isn't overwhelming. And it's slowly going away, for the most part. ...You're having trouble adapting to a life where you're not killing something every week, I'm guessing."

"I killed a cashier out of delirium on my first couple weeks off of hunting, so that much should be obvious."

"And you drained a guy for that spell, but that—"

"I would do anything for you, anyway." The way that Sam looks at him right then makes Lucifer's heart skip a beat. He's been getting used to that. "But yes. I'm not... I'm not angry enough to go out and unnecessarily kill innocents. With you here, that's not even a problem. But because you're here I can also admit that the violence, and... the blood, and the pain—I need that. At regular intervals, even. Sometimes I feel like I was just... born to be a killer. I guess that's why I make the perfect hunter."

Sam's eyes drift to the ceiling as he muses over  _what_  he is. Though he does think to look back to Lucifer, who looks oddly sad as he absentmindedly rests a hand on his chest. At which point Sam puts his own hand over that one and thinks for a second before he attempts to make himself clearer.

"I only ever accepted myself because of you, you know. I thought I was a monster for a long time, and... obviously you know that you made me realize I wasn't. And that the demon blood wasn't my fault—that  _nothing_  was my fault, and all of that. But mostly, you took all the bad things about me and you made me feel like there was  _nothing wrong_  with them. You made me feel beautiful for all the things that I am, even if I'm a killer—you know that, don't you?"

Lucifer feels as though he might suddenly break into a million shards of light, but instead he merely breaks a record for how many irregularities he feels in his heartbeat within a span of ten seconds as he shifts to lie directly next to Sam and kiss him. He does it with a surprising, but refreshing softness that conveys exactly what he wants it to.  _You_ are _beautiful. You are so, so beautiful._

And that's all they need for a minute or so, as they're entirely comfortable gazing at each other in silence. But eventually Lucifer decides he wants to kiss him again, firmer this time.

"...I hope the demons we get to kill are enough," he says sincerely, more out of worry for Sam than himself, and Sam responds with a noise of agreement against Lucifer's mouth. His need for violence can't extend past what is safe (necessary, that is) for them to do. They simply can't risk it, not when there are so many threats after them.

Is there anything  _not_  after them?


End file.
